


to strike a match that's soaking wet

by maharlika



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 00:39:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2527577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maharlika/pseuds/maharlika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A modern AU with concepts loosely based on Ursula K. Le Guin's <i>Gifts</i>. There are three things you need to use your Gift: the hand, the eye, and the word. Normally passed on from mother to daughter and father to son, the Gift becomes twisted when the lineage is impure, or when the Gift is passed to the wrong offspring. Enjolras is born with the Gift of Unmaking, and lives with his Gifted hand bound. He seeks a new life in Paris, guided only by his correspondence with a man named Combeferre, who whispers to moths and sends missives on the wings of birds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to strike a match that's soaking wet

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Les Mis Big Bang Challenge 2014. This is pretty much dedicated to [soracia](http://archiveofourown.org/users/soracia), my amazing beta, because this wouldn't have been finished if it hadn't been for her ♥ 
> 
> The amazing art for this fic was done by [Ari](http://courfiusette.tumblr.com), and you can gaze at it in awe [here](http://cishetcourfeyrac.tumblr.com/tagged/to-strike-a-match). Seriously, the art is amazing, please go check it out.
> 
> Thank you to the Big Bang mods for all their patience, and for running this great challenge!

**An Internet Café in the Provence Region, South France**

Enjolras throws the overhead fan a dirty look as it continues to clack noisily above the dusty internet café, the fingers of his left hand tapping impatiently on the table as he waits for the image in front of him to load.

Weeks and weeks of correspondence and planning will be for nothing if he can't verify the identity of the man he's been in contact with for the past year— _Combeferre_ he calls himself; whether it's an actual surname or an alias, Enjolras isn't sure.

His fingers abruptly stop their tapping when the image on the screen resolves itself to reveal a person with masculine features, sandy brown hair and a kind smile. But it's not those things that catch Enjolras' attention—he's immediately drawn to the man's grey eyes. Behind the lenses of his glasses, Enjolras can clearly see the mark on the pupil of his right eye. He lifts his left hand to touch a finger to his own eye beneath his eyelid, his heart trembling in his ribcage.

With mostly steady fingers, he quickly types up an email, short and direct: _confirmed. will be in paris at arranged schedule_. He hesitates, then adds, _i look forward to meeting with you_. He holds his breath until the email sends, then changes the window back to the image of Combeferre. Enjolras supposes he looks like the person he claims to be, the sort of person who speaks to moths and sends messages on the wings of birds. Enjolras hunches protectively over the computer screen, committing Combeferre’s face to memory, right hand clenching even tighter in its usual bound form, red cloth around Enjolras’ closed fist.

A buzzer abruptly sounds and the screen goes black, Enjolras' bound hand jumping immediately to the screen in protest as Combeferre's face disappears from view. He jerks his head towards the counter, where the employee, eyeing him beadily, shrugs and says, "It's 4€ for another hour." Enjolras’ village is a small one, and he is unmistakable. The mayor’s boy, the whispers go, and Enjolras has heard all of them, born Gifted. And such an intelligent, handsome boy as well. It’s a pity.

“4€ for another hour,” the man repeats.

"No, thank you, I'm quite done," Enjolras says brusquely, standing up and almost knocking his chair over as he hurriedly makes his way to the door. A bell chimes as he exits, lost in his own thoughts, his left hand going back to touch the soft skin of his eyelid, as if he can feel the mark right beneath his fingertips.

\--

It takes almost no effort at all to rush to his home, slipping through the gate, now rusted and dirty from lack of care, feeling the gravel crunch beneath his boots as he makes his way to the front door. He doesn't look around him as he climbs up the ornate winding staircase two steps at a time, left hand tensing and releasing on the banister. The bags he's had packed for weeks are sitting beneath his bed where he left them, and he barely spares a parting glance at the room he's lived in for the past twenty years of his life as he hefts the bags over his shoulders and turns to go.

His mother is standing at the doorway.

She holds herself tall, unbending—careful, even now, in her home and in front of her son, not to show any weakness. He's learned it from her, all these years.

"If you leave," she says, "You will never be welcome in this house again."

He steps towards her, stride firm and sure. He leans in to brush a kiss against her cheek, whispers a " _Good bye, Maman,_ " before making his way past her.

He was never welcome begin with, he wants to say, merely a ghost tolerated because his mother had borne him, as neglected as this empty, aching house, with its creaking stairs and peeling paint.

He does not meet his father on the way out.

Enjolras does not look back.

\--

Smoke rises in front of his face as he steps onto the platform, the straps of his backpack digging into his shoulder and his suitcase in his left hand. His right hand, bound as it is with a long strip of red cloth, remains unmoving by his side. The train yawns into place, and Enjolras climbs aboard. To Paris, and to Combeferre, and the other people they’ve talked about in their missives.

An hour into his journey, Enjolras carefully picks apart the knot of the red cloth around his right hand, unraveling it until his skin peeks out, his bony wrist, his lower palm, his curled fingers. He flexes his hand carefully, getting used to the feeling, and avoids eye contact with anyone for the rest of the journey.

\--

ne

**A Kitchen Maid’s Memory**

She would often claim that it had happened on the night of the Harvest Moon, when the maids were out dancing in the apple orchard—they do that less and less, these days, the dancing; except in places far up in the mountains or deeper into the forests, where the girls and boys still remember the names of the old festivities—and she—oh, how she had loved to dance—but the gardener’s boy had taken her into one of the chateau’s many rooms. This, like most of the others, was dusty and quiet and empty.

It had been the strangest thing, she’d remark later on, after she’d smacked away the gardener’s boy for putting his hands where they were not wanted, finding that trail of silvery wings shining in the moonlight. The winding path went from the open window to where almost a hundred winged creatures were alighted on the large wardrobe in the corner of the room. Stranger, still, to open the door and find the Master’s son, curled up in the moth-eaten scarves.

When he had blinked awake and smiled at her, she could have sworn she’d seen his marked eye, but the Gift had not been in his family’s lineage in decades, and surely, it would not manifest in one so young. She’d led him out of the wardrobe and into his room all the same, holding tightly to his hand, though now that she was an old woman, she could not remember which one it had been. Only that her own hands had come away shimmering, glinting. All her life, she’d never seen a single moth like those that she’d seen then. Only brown and drab, with naught a trace of starlight in their wings.

On some nights, swears Old Anne-Marie, with her grandchildren sitting around her ankles, if she tilts it in the moonlight, _just so_ , you’ll still see that faint gleam.

\--

**Paris**

He shifts his suitcase into his right hand, surprised at how heavy it feels, how weak his fingers are, bones creaking with disuse. The red cloth that used to bind his hand goes into his trouser pocket, his left hand worrying at it while he scans the crowd for a familiar, grey-eyed man.

When a small bird—a sparrow, maybe, the plain brown ones he’s often seen in the country—alights on his shoulder, he startles, but is careful not to dislodge it. It nips gently, almost fondly, on a lock of his hair. When the bird flies off, Enjolras follows it through the large crowd, winding through people. When the crowd thins out, at the very end of the platform, Enjolras finds Combeferre reading a book.

“Oh,” Combeferre says, standing up and dusting his trousers, tucking his book into his back pocket. The sparrow chirps at him, and Combeferre reaches up with one hand—the left, though neither of his hands are bound—and lets it alight on his finger. A sound escapes his lips—a word Enjolras can’t recognize, or perhaps a sharp breath—and the sparrow flies away.

Combeferre turns to him and Enjolras nods slowly.

“Hello,” he says, and Combeferre smiles warmly at him.

“Hello, my friend,” he says, and something in Enjolras settles.

Enjolras sets down his suitcase and Combeferre reaches out with his left hand to grasp Enjolras’ right—the first human touch he has felt in a very long time. Combeferre’s hand is dry and his grip is firm.

“You lost something on the train, I think, on your way to Paris,” Combeferre says. He lets go of Enjolras hand but stays close, and when he meets Enjolras’ eyes, it is without hesitation. “But here you will find something much better, I hope.”

“Yes,” Enjolras replies.

“Welcome to Paris, then,” Combeferre says, “We have much to discuss, my friend.”

Belatedly, Enjolras says, “I—thank you.”

Before he turns to leave, Enjolras turns around and takes a last glance at the train tracks. Combeferre grasps his shoulder, steadying him, and they walk, side-by-side, out of the station.

\--

**Excerpt from _Gifted or Cursed? A Medical Analysis_ ***

Though Gifted are recognized most often by the actual manifestation of their Gifts, one prominent manifestation is their Marked eyes. Marked eyes are characterized by one or more of the following physical attributes: 

usually, irregularly-shaped entrance pupils, most often caused by an irregularity in the collarette

occasionally, heterochromia, a difference in colorization of two separate irises

rarely, irregularly shaped eyes altogether: vertical as in cats, or annular as in catfish

Marked eyes can manifest as left eyes or right eyes, and, in rare occasions, as both eyes. Tests conducted throughout the years have not found any linkage between enhanced or deteriorated eyesight due to the deformation of the pupil (Jondrette, 1995, 1998, 2003) but further tests may yet discover some aberration. 

*** put away in a pile of Rejected Books by Combeferre, read gleefully out to him by Grantaire when he’s bored, found by Enjolras on his third week in Combeferre’s apartment**

\--

**Home**

Combeferre lives in a small apartment for student housing, somewhere near the hospital where he does his internship. He takes Enjolras with him through the winding streets of Paris, occasionally stopping to point out a monument and explain a bit of history. He uses both of his hands freely, gesturing often and carefully touching Enjolras' wrist or his shoulder when he wants his attention. He glances sideways at Enjolras every time he does so, gauging his level of comfort, and it soothes Enjolras more than he'd like to admit. 

The way they take is labyrinthine; Combeferre takes Enjolras through a maze of alleys and abandoned buildings, past overgrown gardens and crossing over narrow canals until they’ve drawn away from the center of Paris to somewhere a little more run-down. 

Enjolras realizes he's exhausted by the time they reach Combeferre's apartment building and they're climbing up the stairs; the building is modern by Enjolras' standards, having grown up in a house that had been built centuries before his birth and left to stagnate. Even the village he'd been born in had seemed perpetually steeped in the past; the internet cafe he'd used to exchange emails with Combeferre had been a lifebuoy in the middle of a barren ocean.

"The building is too old to accommodate an elevator," Combeferre explains, huffing as they reach the fifth landing, already the highest, "But I'd rather live here than anywhere else."

Enjolras, taking a moment to regain his breath while Combeferre fumbles with his keys, says, curiously, "So it's true? A lot of other—" he gestures with his hand left hand, waggles his fingers, "Gifted live here?"

Combeferre grins at him, quick and sharp, "I wouldn’t say live as much as pass through, but you'll see them around. Tomorrow, I'll introduce you to Fantine—I've told you about her in our emails, do you remember?—but tonight you'll have to settle for my singular company."

When Enjolras smiles back, it's an unconscious decision, and it surprises him. "I suppose I'll survive somehow."

Combeferre's laughter is muffled as he enters the apartment, and holds the door open for Enjolras to cross the threshold.

\--

"So this is him?" is the first thing Fantine says when Enjolras meets her the next day. She'd opened her door on the 3rd floor of the building and blinked at Enjolras—one of her eyes, the left one, was green, while the other was cloudy and unseeing; the mark on her pupil was indistinguishable, unlike the mark on Enjolras and Combeferre’s.

The next thing Fantine says is: "You're aware that the things we do aren't entirely legal, yes?" to Enjolras, then turns to Combeferre and says, "He’ll have to go if you can't be sure that we can trust him."

"I want to help," Enjolras says firmly.

She gives him a long, appraising look, and Enjolras resists the urge to fidget. Fantine is a small woman, her brown hair cropped short. The dark rings around her eyes and the sharp gauntness of her features speaks of a life that Enjolras can only imagine. Her hair might have been beautiful, once. Her gaze is steel, from both eyes, but after a moment, she softens, and steps back to let them enter her apartment. It's larger than Combeferre's, but also much less cluttered. Where his had been filled to the brim with books, papers, anatomy guides—a human skeleton hanging from the ceiling had accosted Enjolras when he’d settled on the couch to sleep—hers gives off the aura of neutral warmth, almost utterly devoid of personality. Her curtains are cream, boring, while she is anything but. Enjolras suspects that this is deliberate, given what she's dedicated her life to doing.

"If you trust him," she says, directed at Combeferre, as turns into the small kitchen and is lost from Enjolras' view.

"I do," Combeferre says.

He gestures for Enjolras to sit on Fantine’s sofa—also cream—and takes a seat next to him. When Fantine comes out of the kitchen, she’s not carrying, like Enjolras had suspected, tea or coffee or water, but simple wooden block, which she sets on the table in front of them.

“I’m going to have to see what you can do,” Fantine says. She crosses her arms over her thin chest.

“I—” Enjolras swallows, suddenly hesitant. He’d been ready to do this before—would have been ready to do anything to find a place in the community Combeferre had told him of—but he flexes his right hand and is afraid. Of what he can do, of what he has done. There’s a reason he’d been forced to keep it bound.

“Do you know if you still can?” Combeferre asks. Fantine takes a seat on the chair across from them and says, “It’s not unheard of for the Gifted to forget. You’ve kept yourself bound for a long time.”

“No,” Enjolras says, “I haven’t forgotten.”

In the end, it is easier than he’d expected to reach out with his right hand and murmur under his breath a word that comes naturally to him, though he does not know what it means. There is a sharp pain in his left eye, he feels it throb—once, twice—and the wooden block crumples into ashes.

“It is undone,” Fantine says grimly. Undoing is his curse, not the Gift of Calling, like Combeferre, not the Gift of Growth as his mother had. The Gift was normally passed from mother to daughter, but, when passed down to a son, it became twisted.

“Will you use it for us, when the time comes?” she asks, forcing Enjolras to meet her eyes, her voice soft but strong.

“Yes,” Enjolras replies.

“Then welcome home, Enjolras,” Fantine says, and, finally, she offers him a smile. When she extends a hand to touch his, they meet in the middle and linger, palm to palm, fingers pressed close.

“This is how we greet each other,” Fantine says, “To show we do not fear our Gifts, and we should not be feared for them. To be Gifted is not to be unnatural.”

Enjolras feels his breath punched out of him. If Fantine feels his fingers tremble against hers, she makes no mention of it. 

“And now,” Fantine says, “I think we should have some tea.”

\--

Fantine’s Gift, Enjolras finds out, is that of Warmth and Heat. He watches, fascinated, as she touches the side of the teapot with her left hand and hums under her breath. Steam rises from it. The tea she serves is chamomile.

“Binding is an old tradition,” Fantine says as she pours the tea, “I was surprised when Combeferre told me you still kept up with it.”

“My parents were traditional,” Enjolras says. “Out in the country, tradition is important. And my Gift is dangerous.”

“Only dangerous if used improperly, like many abilities, Gifts or otherwise,” Combeferre says, not chiding, but reminding.

“It’s a stigma,” Fantine says, “A visible marker of difference. How do you feel now, unbound?”

Enjolras looks down at his tea, trying to piece his thoughts together. “It was wrong,” he says, finally. “I felt—crippled. Not—whole.” He hadn’t been able to sleep well the night before, had spent hours last night staring at his right hand in the darkness, flexing it and feeling the bones and muscles move.

“That is exactly what they mean to do,” Fantine says, “When they push the legislation to legalize the binding of hands, the blindfolding of eyes.”

There are three things needed to use a Gift, Enjolras had been taught as a child: the hand, the eye, and the word. Fix your marked eye upon the object you wish to affect, raise your hand towards it, and speak the word of your Gift. He knows now that it works differently for everyone: Combeferre’s Gift of Calling works whether animals are visible or not, and in his missives, Combeferre had mentioned a man for whom each hand held different Gifts. Some Gifts require the hand, others only the eye, and others yet, only the word.

“A man I thought I loved hadn’t known I was Gifted,” Fantine continues, “And on a winter’s night, when our carriage had broken down in the woods and we had no way of reaching the city, I held his hand to keep him warm. To keep him safe.

“He called me a witch. And he raised his knife to—“ she raises a hand to her scarred, unseeing eye.

“But the Gift is strong. The mark is gone but my Gift carries on. I kept myself warm and found a kindly man in the woods who tended to my eye.”

“And the other man? The one you thought you loved?” Enjolras asks.

“I left him to freeze in the cold,” Fantine replies serenely. “More tea?”

\--

“How many Gifted are there in Paris?” Enjolras asks Combeferre that night, at the dinner table. Enjolras had spent the afternoon with Fantine, talking to her while their tea grew cold in the porcelain teacups, while Combeferre went out for his shift at the hospital, returning late at night with the cold draft at his shoulders.

Combeferre grunts under his breath, pushing the door closed with some effort—it’s a telltale sign of the colder season when the doors start to stick—and says, “More than you’d think. We will meet many of them in the coming months. Most, if not all of them, are registered—I assume you are as well?”

“I am,” Enjolras replies pushing a mug of tea towards him when Combeferre takes a seat across from him. Combeferre unwinds his scarf along the way and dumps it on Enjolras’ head; their knees bump into each other under the cramped table, but they only take a moment to shift and slot into place.

“As am I. Not that it matters, I suppose. You won’t be getting your papers here. It’s as off the grid as Fantine can make it, with the help of some unique Gifts, and secrecy is important.,” Combeferre says. Then, after looking Enjolras over, “We need to find you warmer clothes.”

Enjolras makes a face, says, “I’m already living off of your charity,” even as he wraps the scarf around his bare neck and sighs, unused to the cold of the city.

“We’ll find you a job soon, don’t worry,” Combeferre says. “And you’re not used to the cold, we can’t have you getting sick.”

“Winters were very mild in my home town,” Enjolras says, his thumb scraping down the side of his own mug, filled with hot chocolate he’d fished out of Combeferre’s cupboard. His right hand is carefully curled on top of the table. “I suppose it would be a stretch to even call the cold season winter, they weren’t much different from the rest of the year. On the rare occasions we had snow, it melted in the air before it could even touch the ground.”

“There are always signs of winter, you can see it in the animals,” Combeferre says, thoughtful, resting his elbow on the table and his chin on his palm, “Frogs disappear when the cold sets in, and ducks and geese—they settle in the south of France for the winter, don’t they? When I was a child, my family lived in Bordeaux, and flocks of nightingales passed through our town as the seasons shifted from autumn to winter.”

“Did you ever—?” Enjolras asks, nodding to Combeferre’s hands, curled around his mug.

“I tried,” Combeferre admits, “but birds were harder for me, then. And it was difficult to call them from so far away, when the warmth tugged them somewhere else. I was—I still am—rather fond of moths. They like to stay low, closer to the ground.”

“Hmm.” Enjolras lifts the mug to his lips and takes a long sip, sighing at the warmth and letting his eyes fall closed. Only two days in Paris, and yet Combeferre’s cramped apartment has felt more like home than his parents’ old mansion ever used to.

“How was your talk with Fantine?” Combeferre asks.

Enjolras looks up from his tea. “It was good. We discussed many things. There’s…there’s a lot to do, isn’t there?”

“Beyond the politics and legislation, you mean? Providing safe spaces for the Gifted, educating people and spreading awareness, finding others like us and teaching them to use their Gifts? It all sounds exhausting, doesn’t it?” Combeferre finishes wryly.

“No,” Enjolras says firmly, “Not at all. There is so much to be done, but doesn’t that excite you? I am determined and sure, now more than ever, that I was right to come here.”

“Ah,” Combeferre says, smiling, “And my emails weren’t enough to convince you in the first place?”

“It is good to finally see you,” Enjolras says, painfully sincere. He slowly stretches his arms across the table, lets his hands lay palms-up, vulnerable and trusting, the way Fantine had taught him.

Combeferre’s hands reach across the table to close over his, gently. “I’m quite pleased as well,” he says, “And glad to know you are determined. My heart is fuller for it.”

“As is mine,” Enjolras says, pressing his fingers up against Combeferre’s. 

\--

Enjolras wakes up to the blanket falling off of him, almost toppling out of Combeferre’s couch when he hears hushed voices from the kitchen. He props himself up on his shoulders groggily, staring out the window to the still-dark sky outside, a lonely streetlamp flickering in the street below. He cranes his neck towards the voices but whatever they’re saying is muffled by the short distance and blurred by his own sleepiness.

He falls asleep again as soon as he settles back down, tugging the blanket cover his feet, and turning over to press his face into the back of the couch.

\--

Enjolras wakes up the second time by degrees, stirring from his sleep and lazily watching the sky lighten by tracking the rise of the sun across the walls, until the room is filled with light and he feels drenched in it, warm and cozy in the couch.

There’s the sound of scuffling from further down the room, where Combeferre’s bedroom door opens and closes. Enjolras hears Combeferre yawn, the scrape of a chair being pulled back.

After rolling over for a few moments, he finally sits up, stretches as he curls the blanket around his shoulders and pads over to the dining table—and sees Combeferre and a dark-haired person with their faces pressed very close together, noses touching, mouths moving—

“Hnn, oh,” the person’s voice is rough and low, masculine, and when he and Combeferre separate slowly, his back bumping into the kitchen table and rattling all the clutter on it, Enjolras sees that he has green eyes, both pupils marked. Both pupils marked—Enjolras can’t help it, he stares.

Combeferre coughs delicately. He pulls away, but settles his hand on other man’s lower back, intimate. Proprietary.

“Enjolras,” Combeferre greets, nodding at him, “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Enjolras says promptly. He feels suddenly ridiculous, standing barefoot where the carpet of the living room meets the cold tile of the dining room, blanket falling over his shoulder.

“This is Grantaire,” Combeferre says, obviously referring to the man standing in a faded shirt and worn boxers beside him.

“Hey,” Grantaire greets, staring back at Enjolras, who still can’t take his eyes off him.

“Both pupils,” Enjolras murmurs, “I’ve only ever read about—are both your hands—?”

Grantaire grins with his mouth twisted to the side, sardonic and cutting; he lifts his hands and wiggles his fingers, and Enjolras can clearly see the red, scarred flesh crisscrossing from his fingers, to his palms, down to his wrists.

Enjolras furrows his eyebrows but before he can ask, Grantaire drops his hands and says, “You don’t get to unlock my tragic backstory until you’re at least a Level Four friend. Now, coffee, Combeferre, I was promised coffee.”

Combeferre rolls his eyes but leans over to brush a kiss to Grantaire’s cheek, entirely unselfconscious, and goes into the kitchen.

Enjolras squeezes himself into a chair and Grantaire walks over to the window beside the table, expertly digs out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from Combeferre’s mess of books and papers, and lights up.

“Open the window, R!” Combeferre calls out from the kitchen and Grantaire rolls his eyes but obeys. The wind blows in, bracingly cold. Enjolras takes a deep breath and lets the freezing air fill his lungs and shiver down to his toes. It wakes him up immediately.

Grantaire pushes most of his upper body out the window, turning his face down against the wind, hands cupped around the cigarette. He shakes out his hair and turns to grins at Enjolras with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, caught safe between his teeth.

“Go on then,” he says, “I know you’re dying to ask.”

“Different Gift in each hand?” Enjolras asks. There’s no use hiding it—Grantaire (aside from being someone whose interests lie in Combeferre)—is an enigma. His scarred hands and twisted grins are fascinating to Enjolras. He’s never quite met anyone like him. 

“Got it in one,” Grantaire says, winks at Enjolras. “Combeferre told me about you before you came. I didn’t think you’d be so—”

“Pale? Blond?” Enjolras raises a challenging eyebrow.

“ _Quiet_ ,” Grantaire says, smirking. “I saw your emails, you know. I was _neglected_ because of those emails, my poor heart.” He presses a hand to his chest dramatically, “Ignored for paragraphs and paragraphs of words on a screen. Combeferre was quite enraptured with you. I expected you to be louder. There were very long emails.”

“I speak when it is necessary,” Enjolras says, and nothing more, to prove his point.

Grantaire barks out a hoarse laugh. “ _Speech was given to man to conceal his thoughts_ , and all that, right?”

Enjolras wrinkles his nose, “Talleyrand. Of course.”

“Would you prefer Shakespeare? _Men of few words are the best men_? Are you one of those men, Enjolras?”

“I suppose we’ll have to see,” Enjolras replies. Grantaire snorts, shaking his head and leaning out the window again.

“Okay, put that out and close the window, you’re going to give Enjolras a cold,” Combeferre says, bustling over to the table laden not only with Grantaire’s promised coffee, but also with bread and cheese and jam.

Grantaire sighs but rubs the cigarette out on the window ledge, drawing his upper body back into the room and sliding the window shut. Enjolras shivers as the cold lingers, tucks the blanket closer around him.

“Show me?” Enjolras asks. Grantaire tucks the cigarette and lighter back under the mess on the table, and swipes his coffee from Combeferre.

“Would love to,” Grantaire says, lifting the mug to his mouth and drinking deeply, “But I have to run.” He walks around the room picking up articles of clothing Enjolras hadn’t been awake enough to notice—tugs on a jacket hanging off one of the piles of books on the floor, emerges from the kitchen with a pair of pants from under the fridge. Neither Grantaire nor Combeferre seem to be the least bit embarrassed about any of this.

“I’ll see you out,” Combeferre tells Grantaire.

Grantaire rolls his eyes. “You don’t need to.”

“I want to.”

Grantaire's shoulders come up, defensive, and Combeferre lays a hand on the side of his neck, strokes a thumb against the line of his jaw. It has Grantaire stepping back, wariness melting away.

"Whatever," he says.

Before Grantaire leaves, Enjolras stands up and offers his hands, palms up. Grantaire blinks at him, then sighs, shaking his head. "You shouldn't have come here," he mutters to Enjolras. "Should've stayed back in the Midi." But he raises his own hands all the same, places them on top of Enjolras. For a moment, they stand there, palm-to-palm. A breath, and then they separate, and Combeferre follows Grantaire to the living room, where he takes some time to shove his feet into a beaten-up pair of boots.

"Excuse us for a moment," Combeferre says, directed at Enjolras. Enjolras nods.

"Bye, Golden God," Grantaire says, before the door closes shut behind them.

\--

**A Temporary Parting**

"You're going to get him killed, you know," Grantaire is saying as they head down the stairs. He walks fast, shorter legs moving faster to get ahead of Combeferre's long-legged stroll.

"Dramatic," Combeferre says.

"You've missed it," Grantaire retorts. "Without Courfeyrac here, you've suffered from a lack of melodrama in your life haven't you? Though I suppose that Apollo upstairs will be helping out with that now. And isn't picking up strays Courfeyrac’s thing anyway? God, you three are going to be insufferable, I can just imagine it." Grantaire reaches the fourth landing, boots noisy on the old wood as he ends his rambling.

He twists around to face Combeferre. "You didn't tell me he'd be coming."

"I thought we were done discussing this last night," Combeferre says, coming up behind him.

"We tabled the discussion last night in favor of you getting your dick in my mouth, but we're not fucking done discussing this."

"Me having my dick in your mouth was in favor of both of us, I believe," Combeferre says. Then: "You're agitated."

"Yeah, no fucking kidding," Grantaire huffs.

"Grantaire, are you—you're jealous," Combeferre says, incredulous.

Instead of replying with something scathing or rambling, Grantaire only fidgets, which is unexpected enough that Combeferre has to breathe out a laugh.

"You have nothing to worry about," Combeferre says, and his voice is calm in a way that makes Grantaire bristle even more.

"I know that, okay, I know, I just. I just got here last night, and I'm leaving again, and I—"

Whatever Grantaire is about to say is interrupted by Combeferre pushing his against the wall and kissing him, slow and languid, hand sinking deep into Grantaire's hair.

"You have _nothing_ to worry about," Combeferre repeats.

"Fuck you," Grantaire mumbles, tucking his head under Combeferre's chin all the same, nosing down his neck and sinking against the wall.

"If only we had the time," Combeferre says. He pulls away to kiss the top of Grantaire's head, his forehead, his cheeks. "If we had the time, I'd let you do anything you want with me."

"Fuck, I hate this. Fuck. I'm going to miss the train, and Fantine is going to kill me," Grantaire says. Combeferre steps away, but grasps his hand and pulls him along. They go down the stairs together.

Out in front of the building, the day is quiet and the street is empty. A cold wind blows through the trees and shivers through the both of them. In response, Combeferre pulls Grantaire close for another kiss, sweet and soft, his hand stroking up and down his back, willing warmth into his chilled skin and tired bones.

"You won't be here for the rest of the season," Combeferre says, wistful.

"I'll be back soon," Grantaire tells him, promises him, "Before the last leaf of Autumn falls." He presses into Combeferre's touch. "I have your journal with me. And your old pair of glasses." They won't be nearly enough, just the ghost of Combeferre's touch and the echo of his stories, but the memories will keep him company all the same. His Gift knows Combeferre's soul well, and Combeferre leaves his mark on everything he owns. Grantaire supposes he could use his Gift on himself and find Combeferre in the memories of his skin as well. 

“And you’ll write to me?”

"Everyday," Combeferre promises. He raises a hand and Grantaire promptly pulls away, close enough to touch but far enough so that a sparrow can land on Combeferre's finger.

"You'll take care of him, won't you?" Combeferre says, and the sparrow cocks its head, and hops onto Grantaire's shoulder.

"Be safe," Grantaire says, pressing his palms against Combeferre's. Combeferre raises Grantaire's palms to his and kisses his scarred skin, the right hand and then the left.

"Be safe," Combeferre echoes.

"Oh, one more thing," Grantaire calls out when he's a few meters away, the sparrow flitting from his shoulder to perch in the nest of his hair. "Take care of Apollo, all right? I want him alive by the time I come back." He winks.

Combeferre smiles fondly at him, then turns and goes back into the building before he chases after Grantaire and drags him back inside and into his bed.

\--

Enjolras turns to Combeferre after the door has shut, eyebrow raised. Combeferre grins sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I meant to tell you—I mean, I’d already told you, in the emails, but specifically, I meant to tell you when he’d come over, but he’d been away for a while and I hadn’t known last night that he was back,” he rambles on his way back to the dining table, where there breakfast sits cold. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

Enjolras stares blankly at him. His blanket is falling off of his shoulder and Combeferre resists the urge to reach out and fix it. “I’m not uncomfortable. I don’t—Combeferre, it’s really none of my business.”

“I know—I’m aware,” Combeferre says, slathering jam on his bread. “Here, eat.” He passes the jar to Enjolras with a pointed look and Enjolras rolls his eyes but takes it.

“He’s your lover,” Enjolras says, and Combeferre coughs, choking on a piece of toast.

“Isn’t he?” Enjolras asks, confused.

“No—I—he is, yes. But—I—more than that, he’s—well. He’s complicated.” Combeferre shuts his eyes in exasperation at himself, “That is a hideously tacky description, but it’s one that works.”

“Does he trust me?” Enjolras asks, to the point.

“He does,” Combeferre says, “Or, rather, he trusts my judgment.”

“And you trust him?”

“With my life.”

“Then I’m sure we’ll get along.”

Combeferre laughs at that. “Enjolras, Grantaire is difficult, most times, and damn near impossible every other time. I love him, but I don’t expect you to get along, not really. But it would be wonderful if you did.”

How Combeferre can love someone he deems _impossible_ is beyond Enjolras, but it’s nothing he has the right to ponder. Combeferre still looks distant, tracking the sky outside the window with his grey eyes.

“And he goes away often?” Enjolras asks, “You’d informed me in your emails about the Gifted living in Fantine’s circle, but you hadn’t been specific. I don’t mean to pry, I just…”

Combeferre smiles and shakes his head.

“Fantine gives Grantaire jobs that mostly involve finding other Gifted around France. Another one of our circle, Courfeyrac, also regularly leaves Paris, but he has a much wider scope than Grantaire. He’s in China right now, but he’ll be home soon.”

“Courfeyrac,” Enjolras repeats, nodding. “He was the one who found me.” He’d been surprised, almost a year ago, by the barn owl that had landed on his windowsill with a letter tied to its leg. The very first that Combeferre had sent him.

“He has the Gift of Paths,” Combeferre confirms. “He was the one who found most of us.”

“I’ll be glad to meet him,” Enjolras says.

“He’ll be glad to meet you,” Comberre says, smiling. Finally, he pulls his eyes away from the window.

“In the meantime, however, I have other friends I would like you to meet. And a job opening, hopefully.”

“That sounds good,” Enjolras says. “Thank you, Combeferre.”

Combeferre smiles, and if there is still a lingering sadness in his eyes, Enjolras does not comment. They spend the rest of the morning discussing everything from the Registration Act to the particulars of bookbinding glue, a topic that Combeferre is apparently rapturous about. And Enjolras tries not to be surprised, as he has for the past year, at how easily they fall into a rhythm together.

\--

**The Bun Also Rises**

The Bun Also Rises is a tiny open-air bakeshop set in the intersection of two streets.

“Both, like, in a physical sense and in a culinary sense,” Joly tells Enjolras after their five-minute tour of the kitchen, the counter, the three cramped tables actually inside the bakeshop, and the benches outside where people can eat their baked goods while being scrutinized by pigeons.

“How so?” Enjolras asks.

“Bossuet is at least three different kinds of East Asian, and Musichetta is Indian, and I’m, well,” Joly gestures to himself with his cane, “A mixed mutt, _asong-kalye_ , Filipino-Spanish. So we thought, why don’t we make some really wacky bread things that are also mixed mutts?”

“Ta-da,” Bossuet says, steadied by Joly when he gestures too large and wobbles.

“And the literary reference?” Enjolras asks.

“We’re mixed breeds, not _savages_ ,” Bossuet says with mock apprehension. He slaps himself in the mouth in what is an attempted gesture for feigned shock. Flour puffs out with his movements.

As far as Enjolras can tell, Bossuet is the baker and Musichetta handles the register, and everything else. Joly studies medicine, but takes pride in his role as “official taster.”

Beside Enjolras, Combeferre smiles that gentle, fond smile of his, then tilts his head slightly. A question: what does Enjolras think of his friends?

“It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” Enjolras says, with utter sincerity. It _is_ a pleasure. Bossuet and Joly and Musichetta are the most radiant people Enjolras has met.

“We’re your friends now as well,” says Musichetta with finality. She has skin that’s darker even than Combeferre’s, and her eyes are grey, unmarked, though they could have been hidden beneath contact lenses. It had never been done in Enjolras’ town, but Combeferre had told him that it was prevalent in the city. Enjolras cannot imagine Musichetta would ever feel the need to hide her Gift. Stationed behind the counter with her arms crossed, she makes an imposing figure, taller than both of her—partners? Lovers?

“Oh! Laigle, show Enjolras your Gift,” Joly says, nudging Bossuet in the ribs.

“Ah,” says Enjolras quickly. “If you don’t mind?”

“Combeferre’s said that you’re very keen on learning about Gifts,” Musichetta remarks, smiling fondly at Joly and Bossuet.

“Hah,” says Bossuet. He shrugs and raises his hands up above his head, wiggling his fingers in some absurd dance. Joly bounces up and down on the balls of his feet eagerly. Enjolras blinks in confusion. They both start humming.

The light streaming into the shop from the early-noon sun starts streaming into Bossuet’s fingers. He stands there, sunlight overflowing out of his cupped hands. He grins at Enjolras and winks, pouring it over Joly’s head where the sunshine—tangible, golden—drips down his round face.

Joly leans up on his toes and kisses Bousset’s cheek.

 _Oh_ , thinks Enjolras.

Musichetta comes over next and hands him an apron.

“I—don’t really know anything about baking,” Enjolras says. Or working.

Musichetta eyes him steadily. “You’ll learn,” she says. Her word is final.

Enjolras accepts it gratefully.

\--

The hardest thing Enjolras has to learn is waking up before the sun has risen. The best kind of bread, Bossuet had declared solemnly, was bread made by the earliest light of day, when the light was supple and soft and rosy. Enjolras leaves before Combeferre wakes, and makes the short, bracing walk in the cold to the bakeshop with his hands stuffed in the pockets of a coat that Combeferre himself had forced on Enjolras.

Joly _tsks_ the first time Enjolras arrives with the chill of autumn winding round his neck, and promises him something knitted in the future. He and Bossuet always share a cup of coffee and a sunrise, while Musichetta refuses to come down from their rooms above the shop until opening time. On Enjolras’ first day, he comes late, running into the shop with apologies already on his tongue. Bossuet hushes them all and declares that Enjolras’ punishment will be to eat cookies.

On his second day, he arrives earlier even than Bossuet, and almost falls asleep on the batter he’s been given to mix.

On the third day, he steps into the shop just as the sun is rising, witnesses how its light floods the room and spills over Bossuet as he kisses Joly good-bye and wishes him a good day.

And so Enjolras’ early mornings are spent in the warmth of Bossuet’s kitchen; they bake and break bread together, often with Joly, sometimes with Musichetta. He wonders quietly at their relationship, the easy push and pull borne out of implicit understanding. And love, he tells himself, seeing, as if for the first time, that that is what love looks like, shared and handed over and graciously received. They love each other abundantly, so that it overflows. There is no corner it does not fill.

All his life, Enjolras has largely been a stranger to physical labor. In the days after he’s started working with Bossuet, he’s found he’s been able to sleep longer, falling into Combeferre’s couch at the end of each day and drowsing off immediately. He becomes aware of heaviness in his arms, in his calves. The creak of his neck in the mornings, the stiffness of his fingers. He catalogues each ache with relish. He holds with relish also the feeling of flour beneath his hands, being able to mold dough underneath his fingers. It’s a quiet relief that he holds close to his heart, unarticulated and secret, like speaking it will unmake it: he’d forgotten he could still use his hands to create.

Watching Bossuet work is a fascination in itself. Enjolras has never seen another person as adjusted to their Gift as Bossuet—when he bakes, he takes strands of sunlight from the open window and laces them into the dough. He hums as he works, and Enjolras comes to realize that these are his words, incomprehensible but intrinsic. This is Bossuet’s art, like Combeferre’s quiet whispers to moths. 

At night, late dinners are spent bumping knees with Combeferre. Their discussions are not limited to history, philosophy or law; Enjolras often entreats him to tell him about the cultivation of apples, the mechanics of a printing press, the migration patterns of songbirds.

Often, before they take their rest, Combeferre waits by the window until a bird comes tapping its beak on the glass. This, Enjolras always takes as a cue to bid him good night. He knows Combeferrre sits on the kitchen table and reads letters from Grantaire, because sometimes Enjolras wakes up in the morning and Combeferre is still sitting at the table, asleep, with a cold draft blowing at his hair from the open window.

(Sometimes, lying in that state between sleeping and waking, Enjolras wonders if Combeferre had waited for his letters like that as well. When morning comes, he puts these thoughts away, shakes them out from his blanket. In the light of day, he drapes that blanket over Combeferre’s tired, slumped body, careful not to jostle Grantaire’s letters, closing the window so they don’t fly out.)

\--

Enjolras soon finds out that his place in the bakeshop is as fortuitous as it is strategic. About a week into his new job, he's sliding a tray of curry cream puffs (one of Bossuet's latest experiments in fusion-baking) into the oven when Bossuet steps out of the kitchen.

It's very early in the morning, and the shop is still closed. Musichetta hasn’t even come down yet.

From the little window through which Enjolras can see the rest of the shop (but usually just the back of Musichetta's head), he sees Bossuet talking into—thin air. Then Bossuet steps back into the bakeshop and Enjolras recognizes the blur of bright blue fluttering above his head. It’s one of Combeferre’s birds— _Alcedo atthis_ , the common kingfisher. He has been learning them, mouthing their names along as Combeferre teaches him, _Cyanistes caeruleus, Motacilla cinerea_. Combeferre’s favorite is _Sturnus vulgaris_ , the European starling with the white spots on its plumage, like stars against the night sky. Enjolras knows this is Combeferre’s favorite because this is the one that most often brings Grantaire’s letters to him.

Enjolras shakes his head clear of the thought, focusing on the pastries instead, and only looks up when Bossuet comes back into the kitchen, holding a square piece of paper in his hands.

He's fidgeting, folding it into smaller and smaller pieces, then smoothing it out, only to repeat the process.

"Is there a problem?" Musichetta's voice rings out as she steps lightly down the narrow, rickety stairs that lead down from their apartment. "I saw one of Combeferre’s come in."

Bossuet smiles as her head pops up in the window. "It's nothing," he says, "Just a new recipe."

"Ah," she says. "Well then, I'm going to open up the shop and handle the morning deliveries. You boys all right here?" She doesn't wait for an answer, just ducks out from their view with a wink.

Enjolras is keenly aware that there's more going on here, but he doesn't need to ask; Bossuet shrugs and hands him the paper. Enjolras unfolds it into a picture of a bouquet of flowers.

"Grantaire's been getting inordinately fond of flower language lately," Bossuet says, as if that's an explanation.

Enjolras looks down at the paper in his hands, tracing the ornate curves of flowers he can’t even name. A work done by Grantaire’s own hand. He feels strange holding it, like he should give it to Combeferre for safe-keeping, the way he keeps all of Grantaire’s other letters safe.

Then, hesitantly, Bossuet says, "Fantine said...your Gift...?"

Enjolras flips the paper over in his hands. "You want me to—? On this?"

"It's the safest way," Bossuet says, sounding apologetic. "We used to just burn them but there was an incident last month with Courfeyrac and Combeferre's stove."

"Combeferre doesn't have a stove," Enjolras says. He turns the paper over again. It's standard letter-writing paper, slightly worn out, Enjolras suspects, from the traveling it’s done.

"Combeferre doesn't have a stove _anymore_ ," Bossuet says gravely. His face can't hold the seriousness for long, and he goes back to a wry smile in a moment.

He hasn't answered the question, but Bossuet is patient.

Enjolras holds the paper in one hand. This should be easy. It's necessary. Even written in code, a message like this falling into the wrong hands—

He should stop being surprised, he supposes, at how easily it comes to him.

The paper breaks apart in his hands, first into pulp, and then into ash.

Bossuet smiles and says, "Thank you."

"Was that a test?" Enjolras wonders out loud.

"Let's eat some cake," Bossuet suggests, as Enjolras lets dust fall from his fingers.

\--

"There's a girl," Bossuet says, later in the afternoon when they've finished icing the last of the cakes and Enjolras is wiping down counters. Bossuet is meticulous about cleanliness. "Or a dog. A girl or a dog, or a girl who's a dog. Or a devil."

"Pardon?" Enjolras asks, looking up. His shoulders ache with the movement. It's been a long day, more tiring than others, somehow. His body's still catching up.

"Flower language isn't terribly precise," Bossuet says, leaning against the counter. He cracks his knuckles, then his back. Enjolras winces. "Anyway, the dog or girl or devil, is in a house with a flower. Or lots of birds. Either, both."

"It sounds like a terrible way of sending a message," Enjolras says.

"Oh, don't worry, Fantine will understand it easily. She has secrets. And Fantine's secrets are Fantine's secrets. Could be a Gifted seeking refuge, on the run from the Government. Could just be someone who wants safe passage, or a place to rest. Secrets are difficult to keep, and she does it well. They're necessary."

Bossuet grimaces, then, and it’s unnerving, how strange it looks on his face.

"We shouldn't have to hide," Enjolras says, carefully.

The afternoon sun filters through the windows. Bossuet hums and laces a strand through his fingers. Outside, Musichetta hears him and hums along, the same tune they hum every day. She'd hummed it this morning, bustling into the kitchen with boxes in her arms, flour and eggs and milk, all the ingredients Bossuet needs. Joly will be arriving from the hospital soon, windswept and cold, but jolly all the same.

Bossuet, Enjolras realizes, never leaves his home.

"No," Bossuet says, after a long while, like it's an afterthought but for the conviction Enjolras can hear behind that single world. "We shouldn't have to."

\--

**an email:**

hello, enjolras. i hope you are well. i do not have much time today to take on your view on the screening of infants for the gift when they are born, but rest assured my sentiments echo yours. grantaire has returned today, slightly worse for the wear, and requires my tending to. suffice to say these new scars will be interesting, to say the least. 

fantine has been asking after you. 

hopefully my next reply will come sooner.

all the best (in all possible worlds),

combeferre

p.s. don’t make that face. what are your thoughts on religion?

ps.s. you never got around to telling me what you did with the bird with the broken wing. i suspect you nursed it back to life. 

\--

**The Gift of Paths**

Combeferre had said, once, that all paths led to Courfeyrac eventually. 

The way his Gift worked, through emotion and feeling, sometimes jolted him awake in the middle of the night, his Gifted hands burning and his eyes blurring through the tears. He'd learned to trace paths from his Grandfather, an old ship captain who had used his Gifts to lead his men safely back home. 

In older times, dowsing chains had been used to find water beneath the earth—Combeferre has told him that his Gift is likely from that lineage, when people used the Gift of Paths to find streams, water, food, safety. There are more modern ways of using his Gift; he's known people who use their Gifted hands to guide them through search results on the Internet. Courfeyrac prefers to use a map, loves the sense of adventure, though he doesn't much like leaving home.

The night before he made the decision to go on the trip that would eventually lead him to Marius, Courfeyrac had woken up crying with laughter. 

The night before he'd told Combeferre about a boy shut away in an old, empty house, he'd woken up crying with the feeling of _wholeness_. 

This is the feeling that comes rushing back when he touches Enjolras' palms with his. When he encloses Enjolras' Gifted hand with both of his hands, he's surprised to see the echo of wonder in Enjolras' face. They step away after a moment and Courfeyrac remembers that they are in Combeferre's apartment, and Enjolras has just stepped into the door. Combeferre's favorite scarf is falling from his shoulders. That's interesting.

"Enjolras," he says, smiles. "It's good to finally meet you."

"Courfeyrac?" Enjolras tries, and nods when Courfeyrac inclines his head. 

"Combeferre isn't in, yet," Enjolras says. He starts unwinding his scarf, shaking out his hair. There is something about him that reminds Courfeyrac of Marius, though his countenance is much more striking, and he carries himself with a different air. 

"I came to meet you, not that old hat," Courfeyrac says. 

Enjolras' lips twitch into a smile and he says, "Well, we have met."

"No two people have truly met until they have learned each others’ favorite colors! Favorite school of philosophy? Most treasured childhood memory? Pancakes or waffles? I'd ask about your political leanings but Fantine only invites certain types of people into this place." He winks, and leans in to whisper, "More importantly, _how_ do you deal with Combeferre in the mornings?"

Enjolras gives him a wry smile and, oh, that's a good look on him. He says, "I usually leave before he wakes up."

Courfeyrac nods sagely, "Yes, that's probably the best way to do it. And the other questions?"

Enjolras tilts his head, thoughtful. “Have you ever seen a field swarmed by dragonflies at the break of day?”

Courfeyrac smiles, “You can tell me all about it.”

\--

**Mr. Mistoffelees**

On the first floor there lives the laziest cat Enjolras has ever had the pleasure of coming upon. It sleeps on the last step of the stairs and it's there when Enjolras leaves on weekday mornings for work. And it's there, still, when he arrives from work in the late afternoon. The cat carves a path around itself by virtue of not making any move to get out of anyone's way. If not for the to-and-fro swish of its long, black tail, Enjolras would probably attempt to find out if it were not, in fact, dead.

So it's a momentous occasion when he actually comes upon the cat on the fifth floor, prowling the door to Combeferre's rooms (Combeferre has had Words with him about this, insisting that Enjolras see the apartment as his own).

"Um," he says, when the cat actually _approaches_ him. "Hello."

"You know, I never considered you'd be the type of person to talk to cats," Courfeyrac says, closing the door behind him. In his hands is Combeferre's large, hardbound copy of _Crime and Punishment_ in the original Russian. For Marius, he's said that morning, letting himself into the apartment as Enjolras was untangling himself from the sheets. Courfeyrac is an early riser, and, apparently, a cat person.

He bends down to scratch the cat behind the ears and it meows plaintively, going instead to paw at Enjolras' shoes.

After a few seconds of ineffectual pawing, it glances at Enjolras and shoots down the stairs. On the landing of the next floor down, they find the cat waiting impatiently, flicking its tail in annoyance.

"I may not have the Gift our esteemed Combeferre has," Courfeyrac says, "But I think that Jehan Prouvaire's cat wants you to follow it."

The cat meows once, and shoots down another flight.

"Wait," says Enjolras, "Are you telling me that that cat actually belongs to someone?"

Courfeyrac looks at him strangely, and says, slowly, "Jehan Prouvaire's cat belongs to Jehan Prouvaire."

When Enjolras only continues to look at him blankly, Courfeyrac throws up his hands (a feat, considering how heavy the book in his hands must be) and says, "I keep forgetting you've only been here a month, damn you."

"I do feel as if I've been here much longer," Enjolras says.

"And damn your sincerity," Courfeyrac sighs. "Well then, we musn't keep Jehan Prouvaire's cat waiting. I was planning on getting a book for Marius anyway, and I'm sure Jehan has some in Chinese."

Jehan Prouvaire, Enjolras finds out, lives on the first floor, in the very first room beside the main door. He’d always thought it was empty. Many of the rooms in Fantine’s building are empty, or else home to transients who arrive one day and are suddenly gone in the next.

The cat is swishing its tail impatiently in front of a door that Courfeyrac bounds over to, knocking on it with much enthusiasm.

Someone who is presumably Jehan Prouvaire opens the door.

“Feuilly!” Courfeyrac exclaims, throwing his arms around the red-haired woman. Well, Enjolras has been wrong before.

“Good morning, Courfeyrac,” Feuilly replies, gingerly patting Courfeyrac on the back. Courfeyrac reaches up to ruffle Feuilly’s already messy hair. She’s tall enough that he reaches only up to her shoulders, but that doesn’t seem to deter him.

“Is Jehan in? Their cat seems to have taken a liking to our newest addition to the group. Well. Second-newest, now that I’ve brought the young Pontmercy under my wing.”

Courfeyrac steps back and grabs Enjolras as he talks, pushing him so that he’s facing Feuilly. Jehan Prouvaire’s cat is swishing between their legs. Enjolras really has to resist the urge to pick it up and set it away.

Feuilly makes a face at Courfeyrac behind Enjolras’ shoulder, but her eyes are kind, almost shy, when she looks at Enjolras.

“Oh!” Feuilly exclaims, “You’re Bossuet’s assistant. I’ve seen you before, around the shop, I mean. I mean, in the bakery. I come over sometimes. For, um, reasons.” Feuilly yawns, waving her hands in a ‘sorry, sorry’ gesture. Enjolras supposes the shyness could have been sleepiness. He’s never really been very good at telling people’s emotions from their faces.

“Hello,” Enjolras replies politely. Feuilly opens her mouth to reply, but only yawns instead.

“Feuilly, my darling,” Courfeyrac says, “I think you need a few more hours of sleep. As Jehan doesn’t seem to be in, Enjolras and I will be going on our way.”

“Yeah, fuck,” says Feuilly, “Sorry, I’m keeping house while Jehan sleeps off the fatigue. They were out somewhere in Digne for the last month or so. Just got back here last night. Left after you did, Fantine’s directives and all that. Talking to people in Church cemeteries, you know how it goes.”

“I have absolutely no idea how that sort of thing goes,” Courfeyrac says cheerfully. Feuilly snorts, then steps back, leaving the door open.

“You may as well come in, I’m sure they won’t mind if I use some of their coffee for you,” she says, disappearing from their view.

“We don’t want to take up any more of your time,” Courfeyrac says, even as he grabs for Enjolras’ hand and pulls him into the apartment.

“Yeah, right, you’re obsessed with Jehan’s coffee, don’t pretend you’re not,” Feuilly says, from the tiny kitchen. There’s some clattering, then smell of coffee starts to permeate through the apartment.

“You’re a goddess,” Courfeyrac says, “Seriously, you’re amazing. Combeferre’s coffee machine is absolute crap, I don’t know how Enjolras has lived with it.”

“I don’t really take coffee,” Enjolras says mildly, nonchalantly watching as Courfeyrac makes a scandalized face at him.

Jehan Prouvaire’s cat meows loudly from the door.

Courfeyrac sets down _Crime and Punishment_ on the floor with a loud, dull thud.

Enjolras says, “Combeferre’s going to kill you for that.”

“Nah,” Courfeyrac says, scooping up Jehan Prouvaire’s cat from where it’s stationed itself by the doorway. The moment he sets it into the room, though, it goes running back out.

“Huh. Weird cat,” Courfeyrac says, and closes the door.

“He doesn’t like to stay inside,” Feuilly says, reappearing with coffee.

“I can see why,” Enjolras murmurs, looking around. The apartment is eccentric, to put it lightly. Macabre would be Enjolras’ word of choice. There are skulls on bookshelves and most of the tables, and the curtains are a musty purple. Enjolras has never seen purple curtains before. They look ominous. Plants dominate much of the other spaces, crawling vines on the walls and succulents on the floor. There are a few birds fluttering around from perches stuck into the walls. They seem lethargic, barely moving except to titter weakly at each other. There is no litter of feathers to speak of, nothing of the mess Enjolras would have expected from keeping birds in a confined space. Their black, beady eyes make goosebumps rise on his skin.

“Fantine lets people do this to her apartments?” Enjolras asks, eyeing the mini-zen garden in the corner, also shaped like a skull.

“She’s fond of Jehan, and she likes when people are comfortable with their Gifts,” Feuilly explains, while Courfeyrac is busy inhaling the coffee.

“And Prouvaire’s is—?” Enjolras starts, unable to curb his curiosity.

“Animation,” a soft voice says behind them, and the person who is probably Jehan Prouvaire peers at them with large eyes. Their pale skin makes their freckles stand out even more.

“Morning, starlight,” Feuilly says. She stretches her arms above her head, yawning. “Got enough sleep?”

“As much as I’ll ever get,” Jehan says, pushing hair out of their eyes and walking barefoot over to where Enjolras and Coufeyrac stand. Courfeyrac stands still and waits for Jehan to hug him, and then hugs back tightly. Jehan turns to Enjolras, then extends their right hand, palm up. Enjolras touches it with his right as well, and Jehan smiles.

“Hello. It’s nice to finally meet you,” they murmur, and Enjolras nods, “And you as well.”

“You want to know about my Gift, I suppose? Works on plants and animals, mostly. Animation but not life, you see?” they gesture to the birds, to the creeping vines, not quite verdant in the muted sunlight of the room.

“That...must be dangerous,” Enjolras says. It’s easy to understand why Jehan might be in Fantine’s care. With a Gift like that, the government must have been keeping tabs on them.

“Dangerous?” Jehan asks. Everything about them up to this point has been quiet and soft, but there’s a sharpness to their gaze now. Their single Marked eyed, the right one, has one of the most unique Markings Enjolras has seen: heterochromia, golden where the unmarked eye is brown. “My Gift is not dangerous. I am not dangerous. I would never use it in ways to harm people.”

“I—of course not,” Enjolras says, “I apologize, that was hasty of me.”

Jehan’s gaze softens. “You’re learning,” they say. “Be kind to yourself, Enjolras.” They pull away with one more brush of his Gifted hand against Enjolras’. They look out the window and says, “The day is catching up on us. Doesn’t Bossuet make his bread by the light of dawn?”

Enjolras barely stops himself from swearing, “He does. I’m quite late. It really was nice meeting you, but I need to—”

“I’ll walk you out,” Courfeyrac says brightly, kissing Jehan’s cheek, brushing palms with Feuilly.

“It was a pleasure, Enjolras, Courfeyrac,” Jehan says, smiling warmly.

“Oh, and make sure Mr. Mistoffelees doesn’t go out the front door, had a hell of a time catching him the last time someone left the door open.” Feuilly says, swallowing a yawn. At that, she disappears into the bedroom, Jehan following after her. Enjolras catches a glimpse of what’s inside—more purple curtains, more skulls—before the door closes.

“I knew that cat had a name,” Courfeyrac mutters as they step out of the apartment.

\--

**A Gathering**

“Do you want to take five?” Bossuet asks Enjolras, straightening up and sliding the oven shut. It’s getting to be around three in the afternoon, and Musichetta has gone up to pray now that the noon crowd has gone.

“Yeah, thanks,” Enjolras nods, cracking his knuckles. It’s a habit he’s gotten from Bossuet, and he can’t seem to shake it now. He takes a plate of Bossuet’s newly-baked murtabak and sets it down on the table across from the only customer in the shop.

“Hello,” Combeferre greets, smiling over his book. Enjolras hands him a fork, but Combeferre just rolls his eyes and picks up a piece of murtabak, crisp and warm, and bites into it.

“Bossuet is amazing,” Combeferre says, with his mouth full. Enjolras takes the piece from him and finishes it.

“Thank you!” Bossuet calls from the kitchen.

They eat in silence for a few moments, till between them they’ve demolished the plate Enjolras had brought out.

“You seem to be settling in well,” Combeferre says, wiping his fingers on a napkin.

“Your friends are good employers,” Enjolras shrugs.

“ _Your_ friends now too,” Combeferre says.

“Yes,” Enjolras agrees, “But I doubt you came all the way here just to tell me that.”

“I hardly see you outside the apartment,” Combeferre says, and it sounds suspiciously close to a grumble. Combeferre doesn’t grumble.

“Oh,” Enjolras says. “Well, you’re always, you know. Welcome here. You know that, of course.”

“As long as I’m a paying customer, Musichetta would say,” Combeferre says. “I _am_ glad to see you doing well, but you’re right. Fantine wants you to meet the others tonight, now that Courfeyrac has brought Marius home.”

“Tonight? Where?” Enjolras asks, then frowns. “We won’t even all be here, will we? Grantaire hasn’t come back.”

Combeferre shrugs, “You’ve already met him. You haven’t met Marius or Jehan or Feuilly or Bahorel, though.”

“I met Jehan Prouvaire and Feuilly a few days ago after a run-in with Jehan Prouvaire’s cat.”

“Mr. Mistoffelees, you mean?”

“It’s a baffling name,” Enjolras sighs.

“He’s the conjuring cat,” Combeferre explains. At Enjolras’ perplexed look, he amends with, “I’ll lend you the book. It’s one of Grantaire’s favorites.”

Enjolras hums his assent, toying absently with the fork. “So, the meeting tonight?”

“Right here, in the upstairs backroom,” Combeferre says. “You needn’t be nervous,” he adds, pressing his palm against Enjolras’ briefly.

“I’m not, I’m just. Well, perhaps. And I wasn’t aware there was an upstairs backroom.”

“The Buns are going to Rise,” Combeferre says sagely.

“You are awful, and you have taken up more time than my five-minute break should have allowed,” Enjolras tells him, taking the plate and forks away, back into the kitchen.

“I’m properly ashamed,” Combeferre says, not sounding ashamed at all.

Before Enjolras enters the kitchen, he asks, “Will you be staying here till then?”

Combeferre waves his book in reply, and Enjolras pushes past the door.

\--

“See, the thing about most Gifts is that they’re about finesse, you know? You got Musichetta and her knives and Courfeyrac with his maps but me, I only use mine to break things open and that’s how I like it.”

“And yet you once spent an hour trying to use your Gift to peel an orange,” Feuilly chimes in.

Bahorel slams her beer on the table with a laugh that reverberates through Enjolras’ bones. She’s a hulking valkyrie of a woman, tallest out of all of them by far. Her Gift of Opening is a strange one. Enjolras has only ever read about it in criminal cases of thiefs and robbers, but Bahorel could never be one for stealth. She wears far too much red for it.

“An orange?” Marius asks, though he’d confessed earlier that he couldn’t use his Gift of Growth for anything other than ornamental plants. He’s had an earnestly confused expression on his face for most of the night. Enjolras is beginning to think that it’s a permanent fixture. Maybe that’s just how his face looks. (Enjolras wonders if he should be concerned that the snarky voice in his head sounds a lot like Combeferre’s when he’s sleep-deprived.)

“Someone bring me an orange!” Bahorel cries out. Seemingly out of nowhere, Joly throws one over.

At the front of the room, Combeferre, Jehan, Fantine and Musichetta are discussing something in low tones. Enjolras’ gaze jerks away from them when Feuilly nudges him with her shoulder.

“Hey, you doing okay?” she asks.

“Yeah, yes, I’m all right,” Enjolras says.

Feuilly raises an eyebrow.

“I just didn’t think meetings would go this way,” Enjolras admits. They’d spent the first hour actually making introductions and talking issues—homelessness, safe passage, protection from the government—but the next half hour after that has devolved into—into Bahorel spraying orange juice and bits all over the table, apparently.

Feuilly boos loudly, and Bahorel demands for _another!_ amidst laughter.

She turns to Enjolras, though, and gives him an understanding smile.

“Do you want to step out for a while? I need a smoke break,” she says. Enjolras shoots a last glance at Fantine’s table and nods.

The nights have grown much colder since Enjolras first arrived, and he has to secure Combeferre’s scarf around his neck before they go out of the shop. Feuilly offers him a cigarette, which he refuses, and she leans against the wall and takes a few deep puffs before finally speaking.

“You probably know by now that a lot of what we do operates underground. There’s not a lot of things we can openly discuss, and, even then, Fantine only chooses to reveal certain things to certain people. Just in case.”

Enjolras leans against the wall next to hear and looks up into the sky the way she’s doing. There are hardly any visible stars, the worst of Paris’ light pollution coiling even into these run-down parts of town.

“Just in case what?”

“In case something happens and someone tries to pry information from you. The government’s been employing people with Gifts of Speech, I’m sure you’ve heard. For a given definition of employ, at least.”

“I haven’t _done_ anything,” Enjolras says in a frustrated burst, knocking his head against the wall.

Feuilly claps him on the shoulder, her grip firm.

“If Fantine doesn’t need you for anything yet, then there’s nothing for you to do. That’s how it works. Trust her.”

“I know,” Enjolras sighs. “I know, I do. I just—I wish I could help. Do whatever Grantaire and Jehan have been doing. Getting around, helping people.”

Feuilly gives him a small smile. “Most of the time, we’re just trying to help ourselves, Enjolras. I agree with you, nonetheless. Someday soon, something big is going to happen and you’re going to be right on top of it.”

“And you’ll be there beside me?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world. None of us would.”

He gives her a grateful smile in return, then watches as she takes the cigarette from her mouth and cups it in her right hand. She’d told him earlier what her Gift was, but it’s still a wonder to see her use it.

It’s diametrically opposed to his own Gift. When she mutters under breath, the cigarette in her hand starts to reform from ash and paper until it’s sitting whole on her palm.

“So I don’t have to waste money destroying my lungs,” she says with a shrug. “Eventually, the Gift stops working. Even objects get tired of being broken down and built over from scratch, you know?”

“I suppose,” Enjolras says. Her Gift is wonderful. His own Gifted hand twitches. He clenches it tight and breathes in deeply.

Feuilly turns to him, her palm turned up. Enjolras presses his to hers, and the contact is a patch of warmth in the dark, cold evening.

\--

**Three-Way Correspondence**

“Enjolras,” Combeferre greets him one day, on the rare mornings they actually share with each other, when Enjolras doesn’t have to go to the bakeshop, and Combeferre doesn’t have to be at the hospital. 

Enjolras yawns back, bone-tired, and sits himself down on the chair across from him. It takes him a while to actually tune in to what Combeferre’s saying, he’s too busy trying not to fall asleep into his bowl of oatmeal. 

“You want me to what?” Enjolras asks blankly after Combeferre has rambled on for five minutes, waving at Enjolras with letters in his hands. Grantaire’s letters, presumably.

“Grantaire wants to know your opinion on government testing of Gifted. Also, he says that he thinks that the ‘Gifted’ label is inherently wrong and should be shed from daily use,” Combeferre says. He has a look on his face that Enjolras can’t quite parse, equal parts earnest and--nervous?

“What does he suggest, then…?” Enjolras says, already exasperated.

“You can ask him yourself,” Combeferre replies, smiling now, and that’s better. 

Enjolras tilts his head, but there’s really nothing to contemplate. He shrugs and says, “All right.”

Letters from Grantaire come often, almost every day. There’s hardly anything in them about the goings-on of his everyday life, except when he complains about the dullness of whatever task he’s been sent away to do. Stake-out and information gathering, Enjolras assumes. He wonders if Grantaire has a Gift that might be useful for that, and wishes often that he’d gotten to see Grantaire use them. 

Enjolras isn’t even sure he entirely remembers how Grantaire had looked that first time they’d met, in that golden haze of the morning and cold air blowing through Combeferre’s open window, but for the memory of scarred hands and twisted grins and black, curling hair. The defensive hunch of his shoulders and the way Combeferre had soothed it away with a touch. The last thought makes something in Enjolras lurch unexpectedly. Combeferre inviting him to share his lover’s letters, Grantaire requesting for Enjolras’ opinions--he doesn’t know what it means, what any of this means. 

Still, he starts to look forward to Grantaire’s words; he’s an excellent letter-writer, an excellent storyteller. Meetings with cats turn into epics about fighting ravaged beasts, and then into scathing commentary about animal testing. He talks about everything and anything under the sun except personal things, like his work, like the rest of his life. There are drawings, too, fanciful and horrifying, the creatures Enjolras’ kitchen maids would tell him about when he was a child, to scare him into sleeping. Sometimes the drawings are of plants, animals, buildings, anything Grantaire’s wandering hands could put to paper. Once, there is a drawing of Enjolras and Combeferre’s faces looking back at them, sketched out perfectly from memory. 

It’s in Grantaire’s perplexing rambles that Enjolras perhaps begins to understand what Combeferre sees in him. He’s by turns frustrating and surprisingly tender, cynical to the point of almost enraging Enjolras, and then speaks of love and liberty in a tone that’s full of irrepressible longing, as well as irrepressible sarcasm. Grantaire is comprised of ironies. 

There are few things that Enjolras likes seeing more than how Combeferre smiles when he reads Grantaire’s letters. 

The letters grow longer and longer in a span of weeks, and Enjolras asks Combeferre why they don’t just transfer to emails, as Enjolras and Combeferre had done.

Combeferre looks up from the letter they’ve been penning in collaboration, his hands stained with ink. (All of Combeferre’s pens are leaky. Enjolras is starting to think Combeferre buys them like that on purpose.) 

“Grantaire doesn’t like computers, and he refuses to learn how use them,” he says. Enjolras blinks. He’d never considered the possibility, though, of course, he should have. 

“I didn’t learn how to use a computer until you suggested we move our correspondence to email,” Enjolras admits. It had been humiliating and aggravating. Typing with one hand had been difficult, but he’d borne it because talking to Combeferre had been nothing short of a lifeline. He hasn’t tried again, now with his hand unbound. He clenches it reflexively.

“Perhaps you can convince him, then, when he comes back,” Combeferre says. He hands the paper over to Enjolras. 

“He also says that he thinks you’re ridiculous for believing in the legitimacy of revolutions. And for liking the newer Star Wars trilogy.”

“I’m a rebel in more ways than one,” Enjolras says mildly, cracking his fingers in anticipation. He and Combeferre share a smile, and Enjolras sets to writing.

\--

**The Gift of Growth**

"That was completely uncalled for," Courfeyrac says. He leans against the bannister, body rigid. His hands are clenched into fists. Enjolras has seen Courfeyrac angry, has known these past few months how to read the passion in his eyes, how rage sets him alight. That is one way that they are the same. This is not Courfeyrac angry, this is Courfeyrac unmoving. This is Courfeyrac--disappointed. This is much worse.

Outside, Marius is probably wringing his hands and worrying at his scarf, waiting for Courfeyrac to come out. Still ringing in Enjolras' ears is how Combeferre had given words to their shared sentiments, how they'd only had to glance at each other before Combeferre had thoughtlessly cut Marius down from his rambling speech about the importance of ornamental plants. It's a ridiculous thing to have gotten worked up about. At the time, Enjolras had been satisfied to see Marius flinch and fall into quiet, but out here he feels the beginnings of shame.

Beside Enjolras, Combeferre sighs. "You're right," he says, apologetic. Enjolras purses his lips.

"We'll apologize," Combeferre says, giving Enjolras a sidelong glance.

"We will," Enjolras agrees.

Courfeyrac breathes, then unbends. He says, "I know that you two sometimes get caught up in that--thing--that you do, but Marius isn't mean-spirited. Just a bit naïve. He's come a long way. I thought you might have understood how hard it's been for him."

The last part, he directs at Enjolras.

Despite himself, Enjolras wilts at the sadness in Courfeyrac's voice. Anger, he can take, but this--he reaches out to touch Courfeyrac's hand, relieved when Courfeyrac lets him.

"I was out of turn," Enjolras agrees. "I know it's been hard for him. I will speak to him."

"Marius is a good person," Combeferre says. "And a better person for having you as a friend."

Courfeyrac breathes out a laugh and presses his other hand to Combeferre's. "You know how to soften me too well."

Combeferre smiles and presses back, and glances once more at Enjolras. It is not so subtle that Courfeyrac does not catch it, but Combeferre has never been good at keeping worry out of his eyes.

"What is it," Courfeyrac demands more than asks, laughter disappearing from his features.

"It isn't important," Enjolras says, which does nothing to deter Courfeyrac. Of course.

Still, Marius waits outside and it must be cold, even with Courfeyrac's scarf around his neck. (Combeferre and Courfeyrac are the type of people who like giving scarves away. It is one way that they are the same).

"Tomorrow," Courfeyrac says sternly. "I'm coming for breakfast because Combeferre has nothing but bread in his cupboard--don't try to protest, I know it's true--and you are going to tell me everything."

"Bring Marius over," Combeferre suggests.

"So we can apologize properly," Enjolras says.

Courfeyrac looks them both over carefully, then squeezes their hands and nods. They let go. Enjolras tucks his hand into his pocket, for warmth, and Combeferre and Courfeyrac do the same.

"Tomorrow!" Courfeyrac calls out, clattering down the stairs.

"Good night!" Combeferre says.

He and Enjolras turn to look at each other. Enjolras has gotten used to Combeferre's scrutinizing glances, and stands there patiently.

Combeferre must be satisfied with what he sees because he says, "I received another letter from Grantaire today. He wishes to know your opinion on jams."

"I'm partial to peach," Enjolras admits.

"Opposites, even in this," Combeferre sighs dramatically. He holds the door open for Enjolras, and they sit inside the meeting room and pen a letter to Grantaire that details the history of fruit preservation and the intricacies of the sugar trade. The sky outside is still dark when they finish, and Enjolras traces over the way Combeferre writes his capital Rs as they walk back home.

\--

Courfeyrac comes in the morning, as promised. Marius is not with him, but it isn't because of what happened last night, Courfeyrac assures them.

"Marius has found a girl!" Courfeyrac whisper-shouts conspiratorially. Then he reconsiders, "Or a boy. Or both, or neither. In any case, he has surely found love and was out of the apartment like a wisp when morning came. A particularly clumsy wisp, but a wisp nonetheless. Also, I've brought you breakfast."

"This is still bread," Combeferre notes, taking the bagels that Courfeyrac offers him.

"Bagels aren't _just_ bread," Courfeyrac says, feigning affront. He makes no effort to force either Enjolras or Combeferre to talk to him about last night, instead heading to the kitchen to make coffee.

If Courfeyrac were a more jealous person, he would be put off by Enjolras and Combeferre's secrets, but he is more generous than that, and Enjolras knows it. There is a closeness that comes from sharing a living space with someone--Courfeyrac must understand, if his attachment to Marius is any indication.

Enjolras, Combeferre and Courfeyrac had figured out early on that they were essentially unable to find a seating arrangement around the table that felt equal to them, always two of them facing one other, so conversations such as these are done sitting in a triangle (equilateral and equiangular, Combeferre makes sure) on the floor of the living room. There is evidence of this arrangement in the coffee and jam stains on Combeferre's carpet, but the floor is still comfy, and Enjolras can pull the afghan off the couch and wrap himself in it.

They hold communion over toast and peanut butter, drink coffee from a shared pot. Finally, Combeferre says, "I got my papers in the mail yesterday."

Courfeyrac raises an eyebrow, "You get your papers in the mail every month." He is in the process of peeling a hard-boiled egg, and the chipped white shells scatter delicately around him. Enjolras cannot help but be endeared.

"My mother insists on sending them to me," Combeferre says, because his parents never suppressed his Gift but not sending in his papers monthly could cause--trouble. Enjolras and Courfeyrac are already past this stage, both estranged from their families, but Combeferre is not. Neither does he have pale skin, and it is easy for those in power to find fault in that alone. Sometimes it is easy to forget that they can face more danger because of the color of their skin than the existence of their Gifts.

As far as Enjolras knows, Combeferre sends his papers back and forth to his family’s home via his menagerie of birds. It provides the illusion that his papers come from his hometown, and not from this halfway house for the Gifted. He's seen Combeferre bent over the papers on occasion, ticking boxes and circling options:

**NO** , I have not used my Gift for illegal purposes within the past month. (Questionable.)

**YES** , my personal details in the Government Registry remain accurate. (A blatant lie.)

Courfeyrac splits his egg in half, revealing the golden center. He gives a half to Combeferre and another to Enjolras, and leans back, pleased.

"Enjolras and I started talking about Gifts and lineages and..." Combeferre trails off, waits for Enjolras to pick up the thread.

"I told Combeferre yesterday what my mother's Gift is," says Enjolras.

She'd taught him how to fill in his own papers, every last Sunday of the month they'd sit and do them together. He'd been happy enough to do them as a child, to know that the Government needed that information to keep him safe. To keep other people safe from him.

He doesn't know what she's going to do when the forms start piling up in their house, but there's more than enough room for them in the dozens of empty rooms. He wonders if she's disowned him, just to stop them from coming. Wonders if she would go as far as to have him declared dead, to divorce herself and their family from him entirely.

He doesn't know what his face is doing, or what he looks like, but it's apparently enough for Courfeyrac to reach over and touch his hands. He realizes his hands are trembling only against the steady hold of Courfeyrac's.

"Statistically," Enjolras continues, forces himself to, "Statistically, Gifts like the Gift of Growth, like Marius', like my mother's, are the most common in the country, possibly in the world." He has to keep talking, he can't stop.

"Gifts that are useful and helpful, Gifts like Fantine's too for heat and warmth, if we're to accept the theory that Gifts were given to flourish life, then it makes sense that these would be most common."

"Gifts like Combeferre's trace themselves back to when villages needed to call animals to the hunt, and Gifts like yours, Courfeyrac, were useful for survival, for finding water, safety. My mother--she kept her Gift close to herself. We never had to worry about subsisting on the agriculture of the village; my family hoarded money like dragons. But even when--even when the harvest was poor--she never used her Gift. Wasn't fair, she said. As if the way everyone else had to starve was fair."

"I grew up thinking that I would never inherit a Gift, because my father was never Gifted. Instead, I inherited hers, and it grew twisted in me."

He's dug his nails into his palm deep enough to cut, and becomes aware of it only when Courfeyrac gently unfolds his hand. He presses his forehead to Enjolras' and holds him.

"You've punished yourself enough," Courfeyrac says firmly, softly. Combeferre comes back--when had he stood up?--with bandages and a first aid kit, and Enjolras numbly lets him clean the wound. The cuts aren't deep. They barely sting. Courfeyrac holds his hand all the while, then kisses Enjolras' palm afterwards.

"I should apologize to Marius," Enjolras says tiredly. "It wasn't his fault he'd grown up being taught to use his Gift differently. I was wrong."

"Later," Courfeyrac says. He sets the remains of their breakfast aside, draws Combeferre and Enjolras to either side of him, and drapes the afghan over all three of them. It's a tight fit, but they manage. Enjolras feels himself calming down, the rushing in his head clearing enough for him to feel the slight sting of shame that had come from his emotional admission. Courfeyrac can clearly see when Enjolras reaches up to wipe away his stray, unwanted tears, but he makes no comment.

“You truly are the best out of all of us, my friend,” Enjolras says softly, for Courfeyrac’s ears alone.

Courfeyrac kisses his forehead and smiles brightly, “I do try.”

\--

**Thawing Out, or, a Reunion of Sorts**

One evening, Combeferre comes in with blood on his clothes.

Enjolras, standing up to greet him, feels one single throb of _terror_ , and the mug in his hands shatters into pieces, violently unmade.

“No, no, Enjolras, I’m okay, there was an emergency at the hospital but I needed to get home and I didn’t have time to clean up, is Grantaire--is Grantaire not here? Jesus, your hands are all cut up.”

“Grantaire isn’t here,” Enjolras says, sounding stupid to his own ears, looking around as if Grantaire will suddenly sprout up. His hands sting but he barely registers it, not in the face of Combeferre’s quickly-paling face.

“Fantine’s apartment,” Combeferre says, rooting around the room for--a first aid kit? Oh, right, his hands. Combeferre stares wildly at Enjolras, “Go, go! I’ll explain there, and I’ll patch you up, but Grantaire’s bound to be there and there’s something we need to do--” He’s darted past Enjolras in record time, running down the stairs.

Enjolras takes a deep breath, tears his gaze away from the broken porcelain and spilled coffee on the floor, and follows after him.

\--

It’s somewhat unnerving to actually see Grantaire again, after months of only reading him as words on pieces of paper. But he looks exactly as Enjolras remembered him, only this time he seems much less confident, pale and twitching in a corner of Fantine’s apartment. Sitting on Fantine’s cream sofa is a girl who is possibly Enjolras or Marius’ age, face pale and starved, with limp dark hair and a body as thin as a rake.

Fantine lets them in, talking rapidly as soon as Combeferre is within earshot, “Grantaire brought her here because there was nowhere else for her to go, she says it won’t go off until they find out she’s gone but they’ve been on the run for at least a couple of hours and she’ll be missed soon. We need to work fast.”

Combeferre nods as he takes it all in, and Enjolras enters the apartment, thoroughly confused as Fantine closes the door behind him and locks it.

“Jesus Christ, what the fuck did you do to your hands,” Grantaire exclaims from the corner. At the sound of his voice, Combeferre gives a lurch, and Grantaire is there within seconds, gripping his arms.

“Hey, doc,” Grantaire says, “I’m right here, we need you to do your thing, okay?”

“Yes,” Combeferre says hoarsely, “Of course. I’m, Grantaire, I’m glad you’re all right.”

“Never been better,” Grantaire says with a grim smile. Then he turns to Enjolras, wiggling his fingers, those scarred digits. “Looks like we’re going to match.”

“Oh,” Enjolras says. He’s bleeding all over Fantine’s pristine floor, and everything is going so fast, what’s happening? Fantine is handing the girl on the sofa a cloth to put in her mouth--is this a kidnapping? Combeferre tears open a sterilized scalpel from its wrapper, and Enjolras’ mind goes blank.

“Hey, hey, come on, don’t, here, sit down at the kitchen table and I’ll patch you up,” Grantaire is saying, rough voice soothing as he pulls out a chair for Enjolras, like he’s done this before. Oh, God, has he done this before?

“What are you doing,” Enjolras croaks out.

“Right now? I’m patching you up. Sit down, palms up, there, that’s good, this is going to sting.”

It stings. Enjolras bites his lip and hisses out a breath, but it’s lost in the muffled scream of the girl on the sofa when Combeferre digs the tip of the scalpel into her arm.

“Hey, look at me, focus on me,” Grantaire is saying, cleaning out Enjolras wounds. The mug had broken into big enough pieces that none of them are embedded in his palms. The scars probably aren’t going to last, Enjolras thinks numbly.

“What are they doing to her,” Enjolras chokes out, clenching his hands. It’s a bad idea, but the hiss of pain he lets out is covered by another one of the girl’s pained screams.

“It’s not--it’s not like that,” Grantaire says. His hands seem impossibly deft to Enjolras’ eyes right now, applying antiseptic and inspecting the cuts. When he seems satisfied, he starts to wrap bandages around Enjolras’ hands, starting with the right. It feels too much like having it bound again that Enjolras actually jerks away, standing up and holding his hand to his chest, a broken, no, choked out from his lips.

Grantaire holds his hands up in a gesture that means he’s not going to do anything to hurt Enjolras, but how can Enjolras believe him? How can Enjolras believe any of them--he can’t even breathe in the same room--

“It’s a tracker,” Grantaire says urgently, quietly, “It’s a tracker because she’s been experimented on by the government and they’ve been using her to find other Gifted, and you need to calm down and let me treat your hands because you’ll be needing them. Do you know how many lifelines are in your hands? I used to be able to read palms, you know. I’ll tell you the story of how I was raised in a circus later, when this is all done, but right now I need you to calm down, Enjolras, please.”

Enjolras nods shakily, feels himself sitting back on the chair without really registering any of it. Grantaire bandages his hands and Enjolras tries not to vomit.

When Fantine calls out Grantaire’s name, his head jerks up and Enjolras looks over to them. The girl on the couch is breathing hard, sweat beading down her face and neck. Aside from the wound on her arm that Combeferre is cleaning, she looks otherwise unharmed.

Grantaire gives Enjolras a shaky smile and says, “Guess you’ll finally get to see what my Gift is. Stay here. Breathe.”

Throughout their letters, Grantaire had given increasingly improbable possibilities for what his Gift could be, from “ability to hold up my body weight--great for handstands!” to “I can turn make fur grow on anything.”

What actually happens, though, is that Grantaire takes the--tracker? it’s not as small as Enjolras would have thought, half the size of Grantaire’s palm--from where it sits on the cream-colored couch, bleeding all over it, and holds it in his left hand.

He puts his right hand on the wall of Fantine’s apartment nearest to the door. Nothing happens for a while, and then words burst, ink-black, from Grantaire’s right hand. They fly out of his hands like a computer sequence, incomprehensible and too fast for Enjolras to see. Lines and lines of code, the kind that Enjolras has only seen in the moves Courfeyrac has been making him watch. Soon, it’s not just words, but pictures, blueprints? Schematic diagrams. Then--faces, men and women, some blurred out and others clear. And then Grantaire seems to run out of black ink, and the pictures start to run red.

This is when Enjolras looks away.

Grantaire is breathing hard by the end of it, almost crumpled on his knees on the floor, and the entirety of Fantine’s beige apartment is covered in writing, in pictures, information.

Without thinking, Enjolras stands up unsteadily from the table. Combeferre makes it to Grantaire before he does, but Enjolras is the one who grabs the tracker from Grantaire’s hand. It’s hardly covered in blood anymore, a lot of it on Grantaire’s palms, on his pale fingers. Enjolras takes it, and crushes it underfoot. He doesn’t want to use his Gift for this, wants to have the satisfaction of grinding it beneath him and feeling it break underneath his boot.

There isn’t much talking after that. Fantine is talking to the girl on the couch, and Combeferre is stroking a hand through Grantaire’s hair. They’re reunited.

The girl on Fantine’s couch is crying, and there’s blood on the floor. Enjolras feels something terrible rise up in his throat, and he barely makes it to the sink before he’s vomiting in it.

They clean up, afterwards, with antiseptic and tissue paper. Fantine talks to the girl—her name is Eponine, they learn from Grantaire—reasons with her, while Enjolras tries not to listen.

“We’re not going to keep you here,” Fantine is saying. “You will always be free to go. But you will also be safe here.”

“I need to find my brother,” Eponine is saying. “My Gift only works through touch and I have none of his belongings, I need to find him and protect him—”

The conversation isn’t for Enjolras to listen to. When they are done cleaning up, Fantine bids them good night, stroking her thumbs against Enjolras’ bandaged hands when she sees how he’s been hurt.

She thanks them, and closes her door.

\--

They trudge up the stairs in silence. Enjolras opens the door and Combeferre, still supporting a half-asleep Grantaire, gives him a tired smile.

“We’ll see you in the morning?” he asks.

“Yes, of course,” Enjolras replies. His hands are stiff. He can’t quite bring himself to pull up even the smallest of his smiles for Combeferre. He’s suddenly exhausted, though he’d hardly had to do anything. Before he can topple onto the couch, though, Grantaire wakes up, grabbing at him.

“Come on,” he mumbles to Enjolras, then mashes his face against Combeferre’s shoulder.

“You don’t have to sleep alone tonight,” Combeferre offers, then amends it with, “No, you’re not sleeping alone tonight.”

“I don’t need—”

“Enjolras, you’re shaking. Please, for our sakes?”

His muddled brain can’t make sense of this, why it would be for their sake that Enjolras sleeps in their bed. He’s known where he stands with Combeferre since all of this started but with Grantaire in the equation everything is infinitely more complex. He’s too exhausted to parse any of it, feeling like he’s been standing on the precipice of something for far too long, just trying to keep himself from falling in.

He nods. Combeferre takes his hand.

\--

When Enjolras wakes up in the morning, it is to the thought that it has been quite some time since he slept in a proper bed. It almost distracts him from the fact that he’s woken up alone, a distinct contrast from last night, when he and Combeferre and Grantaire had collapsed in a heap, elbows and knees somehow fitting into each other. The touch, Enjolras remembers thinking, had been welcome.

Now, he sits up and tries not to dwell on the loss of that contact. He’d needed to be held last night, and Combeferre and Grantaire had been kind enough to give him that. He needs to be stronger, now, so he breathes deeply and pieces himself back together as he makes up the bed, folding the blanket in half, then in quarters, folding into himself, till all his corners are pristine, clear-cut.

Grantaire stumbles into the room, his mouth bitten-red (did Combeferre kiss him, that morning? did he reach around Enjolras and touch the curve where Grantaire’s shoulder touches his neck?) and his hair a halo around his face. Just like that, Enjolras feels himself cracking. How strange, to have Grantaire in front of him again, in the flesh. Enjolras is forced again to attempt to reconcile the facets of Grantaire he’s been granted through words and letters, with this sleep-rumpled man in front of him. His hands are clean, now, no more blood on them, and Enjolras thinks of what he’d said last night, about how they’d match, hands littered with scars.

“We need to talk,” Grantaire says.

“Do we?” Enjolras replies. “Maybe later. I have to get to work.”

“Enjolras—”

“Thank you, for last night. I need to—”

“Enjolras.” It’s Combeferre, this time. Enjolras exhales on a sharp breath. What do they think they’re doing, cornering him like this?

“I need to go,” Enjolras says brusquely, brushing past Combeferre, who lets him go past. Grantaire opens his mouth as if to protest, but says nothing.

“It’s cold outside,” Grantaire settles for, eventually. “Don’t catch a chill. I just got here and I’m not up to taking care of invalids.”

“Combeferre’s the doctor here,” Enjolras retorts, but he grabs his—Combeferre’s—coat off the sofa anyway before making it out the door. It’s only when he’s going down the stairs, that he realizes there are flecks of blood on his hand from when he’d grabbed the tracker from Grantaire’s hands last night, but he’ll clean them off when he gets to the bakeshop. Grantaire and Combeferre will be glad for the privacy, while he’s gone.

\--

Being at work is almost worse. Joly has a rare day off from the hospital, and moves from the kitchen to the shop, back and forth, while Musichetta perches her head on her elbows and watches Bossuet from the small window that connects the kitchen to the rest of the shop.

Enjolras watches them and can’t help but _want_ , even though he knows he shouldn’t. He never has, before Combeferre, before Grantaire.

Things become worse when Grantaire actually drops by, halfway through the day. Joly and Bossuet and Musichetta all greet him. They seem to be close, if the way they crowd around him, exchanging greetings and puns, is any indication.

Grantaire smiles at Enjolras, standing awkwardly behind everyone, but makes no move to talk to him.

That’s fine.

He stays, though, for the rest of the day, drawing something and humming quietly in the corner of the shop, the same tune that Joly and Bossuet and Musichetta know. Enjolras mixes batters and preheats ovens, and tries not to think about last night.

“I’ll walk you home,” Grantaire offers, standing up when Enjolras exits the kitchen.

“I don’t need walking home,” Enjolras says, biting the words off. He’s tired and he’s spent all day confused and annoyed with himself, with Grantaire and Combeferre and how they make him feel, with Joly and Bossuet and Musichetta for their love.

“Well then, you can walk and I can follow,” Grantaire says.

Enjolras contemplates him for a few moments, but Grantaire doesn’t seem to falter. Eventually, Enjolras nods, and they walk back in silence, Grantaire half a step behind him.

It feels like a reconciliation of some sort, especially when they climb up the stairs and Combeferre is waiting inside the apartment for them.

At dinner, Grantaire sits on Enjolras’ side of the table. They talk about mostly normal things, Grantaire describing their day for Combeferre’s benefit, making a joke about Enjolras’ baking skills.

With dinner done, Enjolras realizes there are no letters to be written anymore, no excuse to spend time looking over Combeferre’s shoulder, thinking of what to say to Grantaire. With the both of them here, Enjolras doesn’t know where to go.

Combeferre fixes that for him, touching Enjolras’ wrist when he moves to stand up.

“Can we talk?” Combeferre asks.

“Please,” Grantaire adds. The table is small enough, and cluttered with too much of Combeferre’s things that Grantaire has had to press close to Enjolras to even put his plate on the table. Enjolras feels the warmth of him now, and can’t seem to move away.

He can only nod.

“We apologize for making you uncomfortable,” Combeferre says, completely calm except for how he’s fidgeting with his fork. “I know we’ve been going about this all the wrong way, and last night might have pushed it too far. We took advantage of your vulnerability, and that was wrong. And we’re sorry.”

Enjolras doesn’t understand. “I don’t understand,” he says. He doesn’t know what else to say.

Combeferre furrows his eyebrows, “I’m talking about Grantaire and I trying to court you. Enjolras, are you all right?"

“Were you—were you two—what?”

“You didn’t know?” Grantaire asks incredulously, from beside him. Then, at Combeferre, “I thought you fucking told him!”

“I did tell him,” Combeferre says, “When I told you about sharing the letters, Enjolras—”

“You didn’t tell me,” Enjolras says immediately, his brain trying to catch up on the situation.

“Fuck. Fuck,” Grantaire breathes. He turns to Enjolras, “We’re telling you now.”

“This isn’t how you court people,” Enjolras says. It’s the only thing he can think to say, this entire situation is entirely bizarre but—

“It was Combeferre’s idea,” Grantaire says gravely. “He tried to woo me with statistical data on the rarity of my Gift, I really shouldn’t have trusted him with this.”

“My Gift is probably rarer,” Enjolras says.

“It is. Statistically. I could show you,” Combeferre says.

“We talked about it in the letters, about you, about wanting to—before—I thought Combeferre would have shown you,” Grantaire says.

“Show me now,” Enjolras demands.

It’s Combeferre who stands up to get them, while Grantaire fidgets beside him. He’s looking at Enjolras with wide eyes, as if Enjolras might run away, as if _he_ might run away. Enjolras considers this, and finds that he does not want Grantaire to run away at all.

Enjolras reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder, steadying him the way he’s seen Combeferre do. Grantaire freezes up under his touch, then melts into it. His breath hitches when Enjolras squeezes gently, and Enjolras feels a blush spreading across his cheeks, mirroring Grantaire’s.

“Oh,” says Combeferre when he sees them, setting a disorganized pile of papers in front of Enjolras. Enjolras makes a move to pull away, and Grantaire makes a noise of protest.

He ends up reading the letters one-handed, fingers restless on Grantaire’s skin, skimming from his shoulder to the side of his neck, his cheek, his jaw. Now that Enjolras knows he can touch, it’s hard not to, but it’s also hard to divide his attention.

Everything is in the letters, Grantaire’s insecurities and Combeferre’s assurances, Grantaire’s confession and Combeferre’s agreement. Their resolve. The word ‘seduce’ is thrown around a few times. Enjolras didn’t know being seduced would feel so much like being bowled over. It’s almost completely overwhelming, but then Grantaire noses into Enjolras’ palm on his cheek.

He kisses Enjolras’ palm, and the sensation tingles up into his arm. Combeferre is watching them both with keen eyes.

“You two are very bad at seduction,” Enjolras says to them.

“We can make up for it in other things,” Combeferre says.

“Is anyone—is anyone going to kiss me, then,” Enjolras says. It is a demand more than it is a question. He’s never been kissed before. He has never even imagined it. He’s imagining it now, though, as Grantaire leans towards him.

The letters lay scattered on the table. Grantaire’s mouth on his feels like it should be sacred, the feeling kept hidden for days when the sun isn’t shining, for comfort during winter. It almost is winter. It is close enough, Enjolras decides, and drinks in the sensation.

Enjolras is greedy for it. Grantaire gives and gives. He is generous and unsparing.

Combeferre is next, moderate even in this, pacing himself and Enjolras. Grantaire places a hand on the back of Enjolras’ neck and strokes, and _oh_ that’s what it feels like. The sensation is wholly new, and Enjolras pushes back against it while Combeferre curves a hand around his jaw and holds him close.

Kissing is good. It is very, very good. Eventually, they migrate into Combeferre’s bedroom. Combeferre and Grantaire’s bedroom. Combeferre and Grantaire and Enjolras’ bedroom.

They fall asleep the way they had last night, with Enjolras in between. The last thought he has before sleeping is how much he would like to press a kiss to the place where Grantaire’s shoulder meets his neck, and do the same to Combeferre. Tomorrow, tomorrow.

Tonight, they rest.

\--

**A Fresh Coat of Paint**

The walls of Fantine’s apartment has seen almost a dozen coats of paint, layers and layers of secrets washed carefully away with a boring ocean of beige. Today, Grantaire comes in with cans of paint and his rattiest shirt, ready to apply another coat. 

He and Eponine are talking in low tones to each other when Fantine comes out to greet him, and she feels relieved that he’s managed to talk to her, when she’d been largely unresponsive to Fantine’s own attempts.

Most of the day is spent on repainting the walls, and most of tomorrow will be too. Two coats of paint are a necessary precaution, and Eponine seems to find vindication in painting over the memories Grantaire had pulled out from her tracker, memories that Fantine is still piecing together. 

Towards the late afternoon, Enjolras knocks on her door with an offer of help, and adds a layer of paint splatters to his flour-filled shirt. If there is anything different about the way he and Grantaire stand together, Fantine only takes as much note as necessary. 

“Government trackers are more run-of-the-mill than you’d think,” Grantaire is saying, guiding Enjolras’ hand as he rolls paint down the wall. They’d stopped being subtle after the first half hour, and Fantine is finally finding common ground with Eponine when they share exasperated glances at each other. 

“We get about a dozen of these runaways every year,” Fantine adds. Enjolras is hardly paying attention to the paint work now, body rigid with an anger that feels all too familiar to Fantine. 

“Where do they come from? Why is no one— _talking_ about these things?” he all but demands. Grantaire takes the paint roller from him before he can presumably throw it away in disgust, and Fantine allows herself an inward smile. It’s always good to have angry ones. 

It’s Eponine who replies to him, voice hardly anything but a rasp, ringing in the silence of the room when her sudden rough laughter peters off. 

“You think people care about where Gifted people end up? You ever live on the streets or end up in jail, pretty boy? It’s enough for anyone to think that giving themselves up to the government for slaughter is the better way to go. ‘s somewhere warm to sleep at night, ‘s all they care about, even when they’re being cut open like a pig at the butcher’s.

“My family sold me off to the government when I stopped being my mother’s princess but that’s better than whoring yourself out on the street, don’t you think? But a few years of that’s enough to bleed you dry, your Gift’s no good for working for other people. Eventually you get tired of seeing them bring in children—gamin aren’t missed, you see, not when there’re scores of them out there—and you need to get out of there. But there’s nowhere to run, not when you’re kept in a place where you’re not meant to be found, not when no one’s looking for you.”

“Because they don’t _know_ to look! If the government were exposed for what they were doing, this wouldn’t happen. There are people who want to help—it was Grantaire who found you,” Enjolras says. 

“I found _him_ ,” Eponine snarls. “That’s how the Path _works_ , I’ve only ever had _myself_ to trust.” She doesn’t say the other ways the Path works, not the part where she’s been forced to give information to help perpetuate wars and military campaigns, not the part where she’s been forced to divulge the location of Gifted who thought they were already safe. 

Throughout these years, Fantine has learned as much about how the Gift can be used for wrong as she has about how it can be used for good.

“We found each other,” Grantaire supplies, unable to help it.

“That is _enough_ , all of you,” Fantine says firmly. 

“Enjolras, I understand your frustration. But we’re fighting against an enemy much larger than ourselves. We have to choose our battles, or burn ourselves out in the process.

“Eponine, I understand your pain. Our doors are open to you for refuge for as long as you want to stay. Any information you can offer us will help a great deal.

“Grantaire—just finish painting the wall, please.”

The tension in the room rises almost to a breaking point, and Fantine is almost certain that Eponine is going to walk over to the door and wrench it open, and run away again.

Instead, she looks at the paint roller in her hand, takes three large steps forward, and, very deliberately, paints a stripe of beige down the side of Enjolras' head, right into his hair.

Grantaire makes a noise. Enjolras makes none. He is standing very, very still.

Even Fantine falters. 

Enjolras reaches up to touch his hair, and his fingers come away wet with paint. Grantaire makes another broken noise.

“Well,” Enjolras says slowly, “I suppose _am_ due for a haircut.”

\--

**An Interlude**

“There,” Grantaire says, setting the hair clippers down. Strands of beige-blonde hair scatter on the floor. “That’s the best I can do.”

Enjolras looks at his reflection in the mirror and runs a hand through his newly-sheared hair. 

“What did you call this, again?” he asks, tugging at the strands on one side while turning his head around to check the sheared side.

“It’s an undercut,” Grantaire replies, “And stop fidgeting. It looks fine. Better than fine.”

“I miss my hair,” Enjolras says, mournfully. He’s never been one for vanity, but to suddenly have so much of it gone is slightly disconcerting.

Grantaire snorts. “Next time, don’t go around provoking people.”

“That’s coming from you? Really?” 

Grantaire shrugs, brushing off hair from Enjolras shoulders.

“I only provoke people I know how to handle,” he says.

Enjolras almost laughs. Instead, he stands up, drawing himself up to his full height. “ _Can_ you handle me, Grantaire?” he says, crowding Grantaire up against the wall.

“Jesus, you’ve gotten good at this,” Grantaire breathes out. 

“Combeferre’s a good teacher,” Enjolras says, leaning in close.

“He’ll be back any minute,” Grantaire says.

“Then let’s give him something nice to come home to,” Enjolras says. His hands are already sneaking up underneath Grantaire’s stupid, paint-splattered, ratty old shirt.

Grantaire laughs, “God, that was an awful line,” then surges up to kiss him.

\--

**modus vivendi**

Combeferre’s shifts as an intern leave him with a sleeping schedule that’s about as fucked up as the existing legislation on the rights of Gifted persons—which is to say, incredibly fucked up.

So early mornings are Enjolras and Grantaire’s, the domain of clambering from under Combeferre’s heavy limbs and padding out into the kitchen before the light of dawn can wash over them. 

They are still learning how to keep their tongues from being too sharp with each other—the arguments they’d had on paper are somehow too harsh to speak aloud, actually facing each other. It’s only in these hours that they are ever truly quiet, both out of a shared unwillingness to wake Combeferre up, and because there are few things that need saying before the sun has risen. 

Instead, they communicate by touch. Fingers on Enjolras’ wrist, a hand on Grantaire’s shoulder, a nudge on the calf. Grantaire’s toes are almost always cold in the mornings, Enjolras has discovered. In the quiet of pre-dawn, Grantaire is a wholly new experience, and Enjolras is learning him in turns, by the touch of his hands and the way he moves when he is tired, soft and slow, feet brushing the floor. 

Enjolras feels like the Little Prince, taming the fox. When he tells Grantaire this, in a hushed whisper, Grantaire grins, sharp, and Enjolras remembers that he is wild.

In the mornings, too, Grantaire is liberal with his Gift. He traces words into Enjolras’ skin, taken from memories of Enjolras' touch on a mug, a plate, the air they share. Sometimes they are only impressions, smudges of colors. These are Enjolras’ favorite marks. 

He touches his fingers to them throughout the day, and remembers how Grantaire had put them upon his skin with his scarred hands.

\--

When the sun has properly risen, Combeferre will wake up, usually to his alarm clock and to Grantaire slipping back into the sheets. 

It is then Combeferre’s turn to extricate himself out of bed without jolting Grantaire awake. Combeferre’s breakfasts are spent with Courfeyrac, most of the time, and Marius, sometimes, though Courfeyrac says he has been spending less and less time at home. 

(“They grow up so fast!” Courfeyrac wailed, once. Combeferre had to kick him under the table, and hope that Grantaire wouldn’t wake.)

If his schedule permits it, Combeferre takes the long way to work and drops by at The Bun Also Rises (he appreciates the bun—the _pun_ —a great deal), to say good morning to Enjolras, and to watch him work.

The human hand has twenty-seven bones: fourteen phalanges, five metacarpals, eight carpal bones. Enjolras had his Gifted hand bound for more than half his life, from his manifestation at nine years old to the day he met Comberre at twenty-two years of age. It would be easy to assume that hand binding would stunt growth, and yet it is a wonder to see Enjolras use his Gifted hand without weakness or atrophy. The Gift is strong, as Fantine likes to say. It carries on. 

And it doesn’t happen often, because Combeferre lives in Paris, and the city likes to pretend it does not have its fair share of bigots, but sometimes people with the Gift come to the hospital, bruised and broken, closed in on themselves. Hand-binding is seen as gauche in this city, but people still wear contact lenses to hide their Marked eyes. He knows how much Joly is risking by keeping his status as Gifted a secret—but the government would never let anyone with the Gift of Slow Wasting work at a hospital, let alone practice medicine. 

It is painful to keep silent, not when his own Gift is rearing inside of him, to scream, to growl, to _Call_ —but Combeferre has spent his life practicing moderation. He is no good to people who need him if he is angry. 

Still, it is a relief, at the end of the day, to come home to Enjolras and Grantaire, and the way they both very unsubtly conspire to crowd him into the couch and cuddle him. Any argument they might have been in the middle of is discarded or set aside, and Combeferre would be amused if he weren’t always so exhausted. 

He is not so exhausted, however, that he cannot guide Enjolras to set his hand upon the side of Grantaire’s neck and teach him how to stroke _just so_ , in a way that has Grantaire trembling. Grantaire is skilled at all things to do with touch, and Enjolras is inexperienced but determined. They meet spectacularly in the middle.

Combeferre is aware that they are doing things backwards, falling into each other before learning how all the edges fit. He and Grantaire have had their years, but there is no rush, now, with Enjolras. They learned each other first through words and stories, and now through touch, through glances. There is something to be said about learning to love this way, where every touch is a reminder of moments where touch was scarce. They are learning to revel in each other.

And Combeferre is quite content to let this, as with all good things, take its course.

\--

Grantaire wakes up alone at midday, most days. Even with the bed all to himself, he has never learned to sprawl in his sleep. When the warmth of Combeferre’s stuffy blankets gets too much, he shuffles out of bed and down the stairs, letting himself into Fantine’s apartment, quietly. 

Sometimes, she has things for him to Touch, a memory to unravel from an otherwise unimportant object. These days, they talk about Montfermeil, about the weeks he’d spent there. She must know by now that he has stumbled upon some of her older secrets, the memories he’d read in an old, dusty doll, in the well in the woods, in the walls of that old, creaky inn where he’d found Eponine—and where she’d found him. 

Fantine’s secrets are not his to tell. He has never made a point of caring about the intricate web that Fantine has built around herself. Combeferre would be delighted with the metaphor, but perhaps not with the thought that they are only insects caught in her thread—though perhaps neither Combeferre nor Enjolras would think that was a fair observation.

He’d meant what he’d told Enjolras, that day they first met, about staying in the Midi. He wishes he could say that he didn’t understand why anyone would want to live in Paris, this grey and drab city, but that would be a lie. 

The city is ancient, centuries of history sowed into its streets and foundations, in each brick and layer of stone. He has learned not to touch its walls without caution, not when he can’t be sure of the stories and memories in them. Despite this, Paris is his home now: not just its buildings, but its people. Grantaire is not sure he quite knows how to take pleasure anywhere else but in the company of his friends. 

Visiting Joly and Bossuet and Musichetta now has the added benefit of seeing Enjolras. Enjolras, who seems to be learning to be—gentle, understanding?—towards Grantaire. It is a terrifying, heady thing, baffling as it may be, but it is an addiction Grantaire can’t quite shake. In all things, Combeferre has always advised moderation. Grantaire will have to trust him in this: Combeferre plots the course, and Enjolras leads them true, and Grantaire takes their hands and takes them on sprawling walks around the city.

Somewhere, somehow, they strike a balance. 

At night, they spend fifteen minutes in bed shifting around each other, and always wake up perfectly nestled, perfectly warm.

\--

“Magic.”

“No.”

“It’s the most plausible explanation.”

“It’s not an explanation at all!”

“Now, children,” Grantaire tuts. He shoves himself into the space between Enjolras and Combeferre on the couch and leans against Enjolras’ shoulder. After a moment, he winces and switches to Combeferre’s shoulder. 

“Don’t make that face,” Grantaire mumbles, “It’s just that your shoulder’s too bony.”

“You weren’t complaining about bony things last night,” Enjolras grumbles.

Grantaire snickers. “God, you have the most awful lines. Combeferre, tell him he has the most awful lines.” He draws his legs up onto the couch and pokes at Enjolras’ calves with his toes. “Foot rub, please.”

“You should be the one giving me the foot rub,” Enjolras sighs, “I’m the one on my feet all day.” Still, he drags his knuckles along the bridge of Grantaire’s foot, kneading. He’s gotten good with his hands these past few months, if Grantaire’s obscene moan is anything to go by.

“Back to the topic at hand?” Combeferre suggests. Grantaire rubs his face into the material of Combeferre’s shirt and whines. 

“Magic is hardly an adequate explanation for the existence of Gifts,” Enjolras says, keeping his voice mild and his hands in motion. Grantaire slides down to place his head on Combeferre’s thigh and nuzzle against it. 

“It’s perfectly plausible,” Combeferre says, “Biology can’t account for everything. If anything, the nature of Gifts is inherently supernatural, beyond the bounds of biology—”

“Of _contemporary_ biology, maybe, but in the future—”

“Grantaire, you are not blowing me on this couch,” Combeferre says sternly. Grantaire butts his head against Combeferre’s hand and blinks innocently up at him.

“No,” Combeferre says firmly. Grantaire pouts.

Enjolras says, “We could go back to notion that what we may imagine as magic is only a form of science that we haven’t reached yet—” 

“Someone’s watched _Thor_ one too many times,” Grantaire interjects.

“Gifts defy the rules of biology themselves,” Combeferre says, taking over, “Jehan’s Gift for instance—reanimation, the giving of lifelike qualities to non-life, how is that within the bounds of what is biologically possible? And on an even higher arching note than that, the idea that Gifts are only somewhat acceptable when they’re passed on to the _same-gendered_ ”—Combeferre makes the air-quotes—“offspring is ludicrous. Magic is stochastic, it wouldn’t follow the rules of chromosomes.” 

“ _Nature_ is stochastic too, modern biology is stupidly adamant about outdated notions of gender and society at large is cissexist,” Grantaire says. “Can I _please_ suck Combeferre’s dick now?”

“We can table the discussion,” Enjolras suggests. 

Grantaire says, “I second the motion.” He leers at Enjolras. “Knew there was a reason we kept you around.”

Enjolras rolls his eyes, deliberately stroking a hand up Grantaire’s inner thigh. Grantaire breathes in sharply, then shivers.

“Knew there was a reason we kept you around,” Enjolras says in a deadpan. Grantaire’s eyes flicker up to meet his, and Enjolras rubs his ankle bone.

“Fuck me,” Grantaire breathes out.

“Hmm,” Combeferre says. “All right.”

\--

**A Sudden Chill**

“I can’t believe you went out without putting on warmer layers,” Combeferre sighs, bringing around a pile of blankets to heap on Enjolras, who is valiantly being cuddled by Grantaire on the couch. 

“The snow excited you, don’t even deny it,” Grantaire says, smiling against Enjolras’ cold skin. 

“It wasn’t even that much,” Combeferre says, huffing out a laugh.

“Country boy,” Grantaire teases. 

“More snuggling, less talking,” Enjolras grumbles. He hums when Combeferre settles down behind him, a solid wall of warmth. 

“Don’t fall asleep just yet, we have dinner with the others in half an hour,” Combeferre murmurs, and Enjolras nods sleepily. Grantaire is lazily nosing along the line of his neck, mumbling sleepy things. Patches of color swirl out of his right hand where he touches Enjolras. Grantaire has a tendency to let his Gift leak out when he is tired, Enjolras has learned. 

Outside, Paris is cold and dark, less sunny now as the first days of December crawl past. Enjolras has been here for almost half a year. 

There’s been more work to be done with Fantine, more people coming in as the nights grow longer, and the building is almost always full now that the cold has truly set in. The bulk of what they do is the same as Combeferre had done for Enjolras: contacting people, welcoming them to Paris, settling them in. Not all of them will stay through the months, like Enjolras. Most are interested in being registered or in finding legal government aid—if they aren’t already on the run from the government, like Eponine—but they come back during the holidays to visit Fantine.

Even their floor has had more tenants; Combeferre has made it a point to befriend all of them. Matelote and Gibelotte, sisters with the Gift of Heat and Warmth. Monsieur Mabeuf, with his Gift of Growth, and Louison, with her Gift of Call—horses are her specialty, though there are few of those in Paris. 

They’d promised dinner with Joly, Bossuet and Musichetta ages ago, but now that he is warm and there are heavy limbs surrounding him, Enjolras is loathe to move. They’re startled out of their sleepy state when a loud pounding erupts at their door. In a moment, Grantaire has pulled himself away, body tense. 

Then the door opens, and Courfeyrac comes in, shaking and dripping with snow. 

“I can’t feel him, I can’t, he’s gone,” he babbles, pulling at his hair. Combeferre is standing up immediately, blankets in his arms. Grantaire is immediately at Courfeyrac’s side, and they lead Courfeyrac to the couch.

“He’s gone, I can’t _feel_ him, I can’t see his Path, I don’t know how to—”

“Courfeyrac,” Enjolras says urgently, firmly, “Who are you talking about?”

“Marius,” Courfeyrac chokes out, “He’s _gone_.”

\--

**The Daughter of a Wolf**

“Is this all you’ve got?”

Eponine is looking down at the box in Courfeyrac’s hands as if it’s personally offended her. 

“He doesn’t really have a lot of clothes,” Courfeyrac says. At the table, he has finally set the box down, and is running gentle hands over it. “This was his father’s. It was the only thing he took from China when we got back, and it _means_ something to him.”

“Open it,” Eponine says bluntly. “I need to touch what’s inside.”

What’s inside, when Courfeyrac lifts the latch and opens the box, are seeds. Kept in compartments set into the box, two rows of six. Twelve small mounds of seeds. 

Combeferre is looking at them curiously, interest in the set of his shoulders. After a moment, he turns to Enjolras and Grantaire and says, “When they started building the Three Gorges Dam, millions of people had to be moved away from their villages. Thousands of villages were flooded, hundreds and thousands of miles of farmland.”

“His father gave the seeds to the village officials to bequeath to his son. He never left that village,” Courfeyrac says softly.

Eponine takes one golden grain of rice and places it on the palm of her hand. 

“These have been touched with the Gift,” she murmurs. She takes another pinch and sets them on her palm, leaning in to bring the seeds up to her nose. A noise emanates from the back of her throat, low and rough. These are her words.

Courfeyrac is visibly nervous, fidgeting. Enjolras wants to hold him, but Combeferre is already beside him. Enjolras focuses instead on the weight of Grantaire in his arms.

Finally, Eponine looks back up. “I don’t know where he is, I mean, I can’t be sure, but I—the quality of his _goneness_. It’s something I’m very well acquainted with,” she says. She carefully pours the grains back into the box and closes it, letting her Gifted hand fall back to her side. 

“Is it—” Grantaire starts, sitting up.

“It’s Patron Minette,” Eponine confirms. She’s not totally unaffected by the information. Enjolras can see from where he’s sitting that she’s shaking very slightly, but her body is otherwise stiff, like a dog with its hackles raised.

Combeferre looks up, fixing Eponine with a look.

“The Patron Minette? What would they do with Marius?”

Eponine lets out a noise that sounds very close to a growl.

Enjolras’ gaze jerks from Combeferre to Eponine. 

“How do you think normal street gangs keep themselves sustained?” Eponine says. “They’re working for an agency.”

“They’re working with the government?” Enjolras asks incredulously. 

“ _For_ the government,” Grantaire mumbles, “Or at least some part of it that is responsible for kidnapping people and running tests on them.” He says it with so much venom and hate, none of his usual smug apathy that Enjolras could kiss him for it. Instead he settles for placing a hand on Grantaire’s nape and running it up into riotous curls. Combeferre’s eyes shift over to them. Enjolras aches for him, hardly a meter away. 

“What would the government—” Coufeyrac starts.

“The Gift of Growth has many applications,” Combeferre says softly. He pushes his glasses up his nose and sighs. “There’s a number of ways they could attempt to find a way to enhance his Gift, or extract it, people have been trying for years—imagine it, an enzyme or catalyst that will make plants grow in a hundredth of a time it usually takes them. All you’d need is a willing subject.”

“And Marius has fallen through the holes in the system,” Courfeyrac says. He is gripping the box in his hands very hard. “His grandfather never registered him, too ashamed of having a Gifted boy in their pure lineage. It’s why Marius never met his father.”

Grantaire makes a soft noise and Enjolras realizes he’s been gripping his hand too tight. He murmurs an apology into Grantaire’s hair, and Grantaire, uncharacteristically subdued and silent, only presses a kiss to his shoulder.

He sits up after a moment, sliding their palms together in a comforting gesture before pulling away from Enjolras. 

“Someone has to tell Fantine, she’s already been sending out word,” Grantaire says, heading towards the door. “We need to discuss this with the others.”

\--

**A Conversation**

“You knew this would happen, sooner or later.” 

“I couldn’t be sure, but I’d expected it, yes. Simplice had seen truth in my statements.”

“You knew the moment that Courfeyrac found his Path that this would happen and yet you—”

“I let things fall as they would.”

“You’ve been _manipulating_ everything.”

“I have always made it clear that anyone who has qualms about my methods is free to keep themselves out of this business.”

“And where would I go? You know as well as I do that there is nowhere else for me but here.”

“My time will be over soon. I wish it did not have to be this way—”

“You can’t just—speed things up, that’s not how this works—he’s _not_ ready. He’s not. ”

“There’s no future in this. Hiding people, hiding _ourselves_ , nothing was ever going to get done this way.”

“You’re going to turn him into a _monster_ —”

“We are _not_ the monsters here.”

“You could do this yourself, you could burn that place to the ground, your Gift—”

“Was never meant for destruction. My Gift is not strong enough for this. Enjolras’ is.”

“ _Hers_ is. You know this. I’ve seen it. What are you—would you use her, as well? You took the only other person who would be able to find her into your care. How did you feel when Eponine told you she was living here in Paris? And Marius—when did you decide to use him as _bait_?”

“She is not strong enough, not yet, but she will come into her own. I have heard that she loves him, and he loves her. People do unspeakable things for love.”

“Courfeyrac cares for him. Even Combeferre has grown fond of him. Enjolras will be harder to convince but he has a righteousness streak a mile wide. And you wanted someone he cared about but not someone he _loved_ —too much anger would make it difficult to keep him on your path, wouldn’t it?”

“So you understand.”

“I know the roles you’re trying to make everyone play.”

“And what is your role, Grantaire?”

“...I keep quiet. I tell no one. I let you use Enjolras. I let him taint his hands.”

“He must learn. The most important thing—”

“Is to protect our own. I know.”

“I truly wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

“Just one last thing. If it had been me—if it had been Combeferre or Courfeyrac, instead of Marius—would you even have hesitated?”

“If it were you or Combeferre or Courfeyrac, Enjolras would have torn down the city by now. I need him focused. I need him on my side.”

A soft sigh, the sound of a chair being pushed back.

“Good night, Grantaire. I’ll call for a meeting instead of tonight’s dinner.”

\--

**The Night, Closing In**

The food that Joly and Bossuet and Musichetta have prepared for dinner is already spread out when the gather on the top floor of their home, but the mood is too somber for eating. 

Fantine is at the front of the room, Enjolras and Combeferre close beside her. Courfeyrac sits near the front as well, and his distress has transformed into wrath. Enjolras is suddenly glad that Courfeyrac’s Gift is not like Fantine’s. 

Grantaire has chosen his customary seat in the back of the room, hunched in on himself. He’s been quiet since receiving the news, not a caustic remark to be heard. It just serves to shake Enjolras up even more; he feels distinctly wrong-footed about this whole thing, like the rug has been pulled under his feet.

Fantine is saying, “...establish that Marius didn’t disappear from the apartment, but while he was out in the city—”

“Rue Plumet,” Eponine rasps out. “He goes there every night, there’s a house with an overgrown garden, and he’s been—he’d been practicing his Gift there.”

Enjolras lets air hiss out of his teeth, sees Courfeyrac bury his face in his hands and rock back into the chair. 

Bahorel actually lets out a groan, loud and exasperated. Jehan shakes their head gravely.

“So as far as we know, our homes are still safe,” Combeferre says. “They must have been trailing Marius…”

“Patron Minette aren’t going to hand him over to the government right away,” Eponine says. Her voice sounds unnaturally loud in the room, completely silent for once. The first meeting they’ve ever had where everyone is at attention, and it has to be because of this. 

“They’re going to try and cut a better deal,” Feuilly says, nodding. 

“We need to move as quickly as possible,” Combeferre says. “We don’t know how long they’ll hold him for.”

“We need to plan our course of action,” Fantine cuts in. “Eponine knows where they may be keeping him. I need a team.”

In the end, it is settled without much fanfare. Enjolras, Eponine, Bahorel, Musichetta: Unmaking, Paths, Opening and Knives; between the four of them, and Fantine’s guidance, there is a chance they may see things through. 

“Marius is going to need a doctor the moment we get him out,” Eponine says quietly, and Enjolras remembers that night with the tracker in her arm. 

Fantine glances at Joly, who shrinks under her gaze. 

“I can’t,” he says, mournfully. He glances at Bossuet, and then at Musichetta. “I can’t leave Lesgles.”

“I will go,” Combeferre says. Enjolras turns to him, but Combeferre is looking at Grantaire. Grantaire, who has shot up from his hunch and is looking at him—at them, at him and Combeferre—

He looks wounded, but slowly he crumples back into himself, and says nothing. It’s _wrong_ , it feels incredibly wrong, and all Enjolras wants to do is stride across the room with Combeferre and hold Grantaire between them.

“Then we are settled,” Fantine says. The rest of the night is spent talking about logistics. Grantaire steps up into the front of the room—a rare event—and lets a floor plan leak from his fingertips. 

The meeting ends when dawn starts to creep through the windows. Many of them are sprawled across various surfaces, asleep, when Fantine beckons Enjolras closer to her. 

In the pale light of day, she looks wan and cold, her one good eye rimmed red with tiredness. 

She says to him, “When you met me, you made me a promise.”

“I remember,” Enjolras replies. 

“You cannot hesitate,” Fantine says. “There is nothing more important than this, now.” Her gaze is piercing. There is no way she does not know that he is thinking of Combeferre and Grantaire now, and had been throughout the night when they were talking about risking their lives to find and rescue Marius. 

“I will do all I can to keep them safe,” Enjolras says, swears it. He grips her hands and his and she grips back, tighter. 

“That is all I ask,” she says softly. 

She is asking for much, Enjolras knows. But the thought of his lovers, his friends in danger—it is too much to bear. 

When the sun rises over them, Enjolras clenches his right hand and lets out a breath. Combeferre comes up behind him when Fantine turns to go, and Enjolras lets himself sink into his arms. Between the two of them, they lead Grantaire back home. Still quiet, still sunken into melancholia. Enjolras dreads the thought of leaving him, and allows his clinging hands all the way up into their small apartment. 

Clothes are shed, blankets are spread out, and when they are pressed up against each other, Enjolras thinks only of keeping them safe. He would unmake anything, any man, to protect them. His thoughts go hazy with the need for slumber, but that one thing is certain. Tomorrow, tomorrow. There is work to be done tomorrow, but now he holds, and lets himself be held. 

For now, they rest. 

\--

**The Gift of Fire**

There will be a train and bus to get on tomorrow, to take them to Montfermeil, but today, the afternoon sun finds them still in bed, Grantaire telling Enjolras the story of how Combeferre found him. He paints a picture with his words and with his hands, drawing the memory from Combeferre’s own skin.

Pressed up against Grantaire’s front, Enjolras holds one of Grantaire’s hands in his own. The other hand, Combeferre has claimed. 

“A circus?” Enjolras asks. He looks over Grantaire to meet Combeferre’s eyes, which sparkle with amusement. 

“A circus,” Combeferre confirms. 

“I manifested late,” Grantaire says, “I was already enough of a disappointment but to my father, that was the straw the broke the camel’s back.”

“Your hands—”

“Straight into the fireplace,” Grantaire says, and his mouth has curled up into that wry grimace. Enjolras leans in to kiss the expression off his face, and finds he cannot stop there, not when tomorrow they will be leaving and Grantaire will be alone—

Combeferre soothes a hand down his shoulder and Enjolras breathes. Grantaire breathes against him. 

“But the Gift is strong,” Grantaire says, not looking at Enjolras.

“And it carries on,” Enjolras finishes. 

“I ran away, and found Musichetta,” Grantaire says. “I never would have made it alive without her.”

“The Gift of Knives,” Combeferre explains. “It was never a common Gift in France.”

“A knife thrower,” Enjolras says in realization.

“And I was a palm reader,” Grantaire says, and then laughs at the expression on Enjolras’s face.

“And how did Combeferre—” 

“He wanted to see for himself, of course,” Grantaire says. He’s grinning properly now.

“Ah,” Enjolras says, “I see it now. Affirming nothing—”

“Not even miracles,” Grantaire says. “Denying nothing—”

“Not even palm-read fortunes,” Combeferre says blithely. “In my defense, you were quite excellent at it. Courfeyrac was enthralled.”

“I was found out, of course,” Grantaire says. “And he took me home. Not straight into his bed, mind you, I wasn’t that easy.”

“No,” Combeferre murmurs, “Easy you were not.”

“You are wild,” Enjolras says.

“Wild for you,” Grantaire says, murmured close into Enjorlas’ chest like it is a secret. Combeferre presses a kiss to his bare shoulder, and Enjolras _aches_.

“All I want is for you two to come home to me,” Grantaire whispers, the words trembling out of him. “Come home to me.”

When they kiss Grantaire’s palms, it is a promise.

\--

When night falls, there is a knock on Courfeyrac’s door. Somehow, the knowledge that Marius is gone has made it emptier, bigger. He is trying to stay angry, so he does not feel tired.

He opens the door. A girl in a beautiful dress stands in front of him, and her eyes strike familiarity in him: green, the color of forests and rolling hills.

She says, “Good evening, Monsieur. My name is Cosette Fauchelevent, and I’m looking for Marius Pontmercy.”

\--

Cosette Fauchelevent is wearing no shoes. This is the first thing Enjolras notices when she comes into Fantine’s rooms, lifting the skirts of her dress as she crosses the threshold. The second thing he notices is the way Grantaire raises his head to meet Eponine’s across the room. It is as if he has been jolted in the spine, the way he straightens up so quickly. Something passes between them that Enjolras cannot quite catch, but it is gone in a moment.

“I want to come with you,” Cosette says, gripping the sides of her dress tightly. Its hems are filthy, and her hair is in disarray. She says she’s been looking for Marius throughout the day, when he didn’t meet her that night at Rue Plumet. There is something about her that is that is wild. Enjolras knows the quality well, now that he knows Grantaire.

“We cannot take you with us,” Fantine says. “You will be a liability. We don’t have time or effort to waste on protecting you.”

“I can protect myself,” Cosette says. 

Eponine laughs. It is grating and harsh. She barks out, “You! A girl like you is better off staying at home. Go play with your pretty dresses, Fauchelevent.”

Cosette thrusts her arm out in front of her, left palm facing upwards. 

“I can protect myself,” she says again, and fire bursts forth from her hand. 

In seconds, Fantine has stepped forward and taken hold of her wrist, forcing Cosette’s palm closed and extinguishing the fire.

“Do _not_ open a fire like that in my home,” she hisses.

Cosette steps back, startled, but holds her ground. “I’m going with you.”

“Should we put this to a vote?” Combeferre asks. 

There is a moment of silence as Fantine considers Cosette, and then she steps back with a nod.

Fantine turns towards Eponine, who’s gone pale. “Get her into some proper clothes and brief her.”

“She’s coming with us.” 

\--

**Waiting**

The first day passes slower than Grantaire could have ever imagined. He’d thought he was used to being alone, has learned how to live in solitude throughout these years of travelling the country and the continent for Fantine’s missions. Being away from Combeferre and his friends had been terrible enough, but now he aches for Enjolras as well. 

He’d gone to visit Joly and Bossuet right after the others had left for Montfermeil, and it had been a relief to sit with them. But they had their own loneliness to account for, with Musichetta gone as well. He’d visited Courfeyrac next, allowed him to clang around with pots and pans and attempt to cook something to rid them both of their restlessness and loneliness. 

Now, he sits on the sofa and tries not to mope, tries to focus instead on cleaning out the apartment and keeping from drinking too much. Surely, Combeferre and Enjolras will appreciate it when they return. He tries not to dwell on his customary Stygian thoughts, of being left behind, of Enjolras and Combeferre being better off with each other. He knows they’re not true. He knows they care for him, but the first hours of their absence dredge on and on and he has never been good when left to his own thoughts. 

He writes letters, instead. Not meant to be sent, but maybe for Enjolras and Combeferre to read them when they return. It keeps his mind from wandering down darker paths.

Sometime in the middle of the night, Grantaire wakes up because of the knocking on the door. 

Could they be home already? He drags himself out of bed, feeling his mouth curl up into an involuntary smile.

He throws the door open.

\--

**The Ground Falls Away**

There is no one else in the basement of the dusty inn aside from Marius, gagged and tied down to a chair. Bahorel had burst the door open and they’d rushed in to find the place empty. Silence had settled over them as Eponine led them through the corridors and down the stairs.

There’s something wrong here, Enjolras realizes. They are taking too long to cut Marius down, and he’s been babbling nonsense since Eponine tore the gag from his mouth. Enjolras lifts his hand and unmakes the rope with a sharp word. 

“They’re not here,” Eponine says, growling it. Cosette sweeps Marius into her arms, and he looks like he’s going to faint from the shock of her.

Fantine shares a look with Enjolras as Combeferre checks Marius out and Bahorel scouts the rest of the inn with Eponine.

“We should go back,” she says, brows furrowed. 

“As soon as possible,” Enjolras agrees. 

“They haven’t even put a tracker on him,” Combeferre says. His usually calm voice has an edge to it. He stands up and looks Enjolras in the eyes.

“If they haven’t put a tracker on him…” Cosette starts slowly.

Marius heaves another cough and chokes out, “They _know_ , they already know where we live.”

A light bulb shatters overhead. 

“Enjolras,” Combeferre says, reaching over to take his hands. 

“Grantaire,” Enjolras says. He feels his body going numb. 

\--

The journey home is tense and awful. Combeferre stays close by his side and their hands remain clasped the whole way. 

The hour passes by quickly, and then they are rushing home. It is the middle of the night. It’s a relief to see their building, but Enjolras and Combeferre cannot rest until they’ve gone up into their rooms. Grantaire’s safety is the first priority, all other thoughts are set aside.

When they open the door, it is dark. Enjolras’ blood drains from his face when he hears the click of a gun’s safety being removed, and then the room floods into light.

Grantaire is blindfolded and gagged, kneeling on the floor with a gun pressed to the back of his head.

Everything goes white at the edges, and then everything in Enjolras’ bones is screaming at him to run to him. He can’t help but fixate on the blood on the side of Grantaire’s mouth and on his cheek, but eventually his gaze moves to the man standing behind him. 

“Montparnasse,” Eponine growls. Enjolras had almost forgotten they were there, his mind and vision narrowing down to Grantaire and the barrel of a gun.

There are others in the room, all men in black clothing with their guns cocked. 

The man named Montparnasse smiles at them, taking his gun away from Grantaire and spreading his arms benevolently. 

“ _Eponine_ ,” he purrs. “It’s lovely to see you again. I wish we could have had our catch-up at, ah, a more suitable location. But this will have to do, won’t it?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Eponine hisses. “You fucking traitor. I wish I’d cut off your hands and gouged your eyes out when I had the chance.”

Montparnasse’s face is frozen on that awful smile when he turns to face Enjolras.

“And here he is, the golden child. My, if only you knew how much money people would pay to have you. I had to get through this mutt here—” Montparnasse stomps his boot on Grantaire’s back to emphasize, “—and he fucking _bit_ me, so I’m _very_ unhappy right now.”

“And, ah, Fantine. I’m sorry your little ruse didn’t work. Our friends in higher places are quite well-prepared, I assure you. There was no way you were ever going to get to them through us. Your attempt was pathetic. But it was always going to end this way.”

“You’ve made a mistake,” Fantine says. 

“Oh, have I?” Montparnasse drawls, “Do tell.”

“We were supposed to have kept you alive, for the information. But now I’m afraid we have no other choice.

“Your first mistake?” Fantine says, tilting her head to the side and fixing Montparnasse with a calm gaze. “You touched Grantaire.”

Montparnasse grins, feral and dark, and pointedly shoves his boot on top of Grantaire’s head, pushing it down. 

“You all fucking disgust—”

It’s the furthest he gets before Enjolras has taken two steps forward and grabbed him by the hair. Guns fall apart in the other mens’ hands, unmade, as Enjolras forces Montparnasse to his knees. 

“You have a minute to pray to whatever god you think will listen to you before I unmake you,” Enjolras grounds out, clutching a fistful of Montparnasse’s hair and feeling it crumbling in his hands already. 

Montparnasse laughs, high and hysterical, “We’re already burning this fucking hole to the ground, you’re all going to die with it and you know what they’ll find? Fucking little miracle children lost control of their Curses and burned everything to the ground.”

“You don’t have it in you,” Montparnasse continues, mocking, “Your _maman_ sent out the notice to the government, did you know? Potentially dangerous Marked individual running amok in the streets of Paris, every bounty hunter in this country is going to chase after you—but you don’t even have the fucking guts to—”

“Enjolras, no!” 

He doesn’t know who says it. His Words are spat out of his mouth faster than he think of them, almost unbidden, but there is no anger left in him, just perfect clarity. 

“We have to get out, the building’s on fire,” someone is saying. Enjolras kicks the remains of what once was a man onto the floor, and it bursts into ashes.

“Enjolras,” someone says, and Enjolras turns and Grantaire and Combeferre are watching him with grim determination. 

They take his hands. They go. 

\--

Outside, there is no time to rest, to even think. The fire is spreading, and Enjolras feels something inside him shattering, breaking. Not even Combeferre and Grantaire pressed to his side can keep all of him from crumbling. 

And then Fantine and Cosette step up beside each other. They hold hands, and draw the fire into their palms. They are a wonder to watch, even in Enjolras’ exhaustion, even with the disgust clawing up his throat. Slowly, the fire ebbs, and what remains is home, scorched and broken, but standing. 

Around Enjolras, his friends stand, faces tired and gaunt. Someone is saying that Pére Mabeuf hadn’t gotten out of the building fast enough. Someone will have to bring him to the hospital.

Courfeyrac comes running into him moments later, and Enjolras lets himself press against the hug. 

From the ashes, Marius will find something to grow. 

Mr. Mistoffelees can be reanimated, Jehan is saying. Another animal to add to their collection. 

Feuilly will remake anything that has been broken. 

And Enjolras stands there with his useless hands. 

Eventually Grantaire folds Enjolras’ hand into his and reaches up to kiss him. He is so gentle, even as his hands are rough. 

“Thank you,” Grantaire says, and Enjolras could almost cry. 

A bird settles on his shoulder, and Combeferre strokes his hair. Enjolras trembles, and clenches his hand. 

Slowly, he learns to breathe again, in fits and starts. They climb up to the apartment, through the ash and the soot. The bathroom, at least, is clean, and Combeferre and Grantaire move away when he pushes at them. The shower is scalding but he forces himself under the spray, sliding down to the tiled floor and pulling his knees to his chest. 

He feels like a child. He feels dirty, like he will never be clean again.

He doesn’t know how long he sits under the water, but when he stands up again, his bones creak in protest. His clothes are waterlogged, and each step is heavy.

He opens the door, and Combeferre is waiting with a towel. 

Apologetically, he says, “I tried to get as much soot out of it as possible.”

Enjolras takes it. 

Grantaire brings over a cup of tea. 

Enjolras blinks at the both of them. 

“You don’t—you don’t need to do this,” he says, voice hoarse. 

“We want to,” Grantaire says, rolling his eyes. 

“Please let us,” Combeferre says. 

Just tonight, Enjolras tells himself. Just one last night. And then he needs to leave, he needs to go. He can’t be here anymore, not with what Montparnasse said. He’s endangering them all. He already has. 

Grantaire and Combeferre hold him between them, that night, like they had the first night they’d slept in one bed. Enjolras falls asleep to the thought that this would have been worth it. 

Tomorrow, he needs to go. Tonight, they rest. 

\--

He rises before dawn has broken. It is the hardest thing to do, to not touch his fingers against the strong line of Combeferre’s jaw, or tug at a curl of Grantaire’s hair, but he cannot risk waking them.

He walks out of the room as quietly as possible. There are already bags packed, resting on top of the table.

“Are you ready to go?” Combeferre asks, appearing at the doorway.

“Combeferre,” Enjolras says. It’s all he can say. Combeferre gazes at him, calm and patient, as he always is. 

“You’re not coming with me,” Enjolras forces out. 

Combeferre rolls his eyes, “I’ll get breakfast ready. You’re going to have to wake Grantaire up.”

“You’re _not_ ,” Enjolras says. 

“You put up a convincing argument,” Combeferre says. 

“Don’t,” Enjolras bites out. “Don’t do this. I’m trying—I need to keep you safe, I need to—”

Combeferre kisses him. Everything in Enjolras tenses, and then releases. The touch of Combeferre’s fingers to his jaw is intimately grounding.

“You’re either staying, or you’re going. Wherever you go, we will go. Wherever you stay, we will stay. Don’t think our love so poor that you can cast it aside so easily, Enjolras.”

The breath shivers out of him. Combeferre is strong and solid, a beacon, as he always has been. Enjolras can’t imagine his life without him, anymore.

Enjolras says, “I don’t want to wake Grantaire up.”

Combeferre gives him a long, searching look. “Then get back into bed. He’ll start missing us, soon, and wake up all on his own.”

“I don’t know how to keep you safe,” Enjolras whispers. 

“You don’t have to do it all on your own,” Combeferre says, “Haven’t you learned that by now? There will be trains coming in and out of Paris all day. You can take your pick, anytime you want. But I think we should at least say good bye to Courfeyrac first before we leave, don’t you think?”

“All right,” Enjolras says, after a while. 

Combeferre extends a hand to him, and leads him back to bed. Grantaire shifts to accommodate them, murmurs, “I can’t believe you thought you could run out on us,” into Enjolras’ skin before falling back to sleep. 

Enjolras falls asleep to Combeferre murmuring to a spider that has started weaving its web on their ceiling, undisturbed by the events of yesterday. 

\--

**END**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Title for this fic is from Breakers by the Local Natives. 
> 
> As it says in the summary, this fic is loosely based off of Ursula K. Le Guin's book, _Gifts_ , which I last read when I was about 12 years old. So when I say loosely, I mean loosely. It's a wonderful book, though! I recommend it to everyone.


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